Spiritual Mage Ranma
by weebee
Summary: Genma and Soun are known for their many failures, but one was MUCH more spectacular than others, and it's about to fall into Ranma's lap. Typical, really. chars indicated are not a pairing.
1. Prologue

Spiritual Mage Ranma.

Disclaimer: I do not own Ranma one half or Lyrical Nanoha, they are owned by their owners, who are not me, and who own what they own. Mojo-Jojo is also owned by the person who owns Mojo-jojo, who is not me, and is the person who...

Disclaimer 2" This story has been rewritten due to continuity screwups and because of major later plot restructuring. This note will be repeated in the new chapter. It shouldn't need a deep re-reading, just assume that any inconsistancies from the original version you read are things I changed, such as Marla becoming Marle.

Disclaimer 3: This fic will not be lore frindly to the MGLN series, as it's actually based off an idea I stole from Drunken Grognard, with permission... I think... and involves a really really big A/U for that series.

I decided to re-list it as a Nanoha crossover, since at least one MGLN character is a decently important first arc character, and it crosses into the main 'verse in Arc 2, but as this slight rewrite attests, I tend to misunderstand some things spectacularely. Just go into this with the understanding that I'm not precisely promicing accuracy, have not listened to the sound stages, and have not watched anything past A's due to an inability to read subs without a headache that could rival small countries in size.

STAB is intentional. You'll see why later.

Prologue.

Soun Tendo and Genma Saotome sat at a Shogi board, carefully moving pieces in an intricate dance of strategy. Or, at least, that's what they'd like an outside observer to think. In point of fact, they were both cheating like mad, and quite enjoying it. It was a quiet, lazy afternoon, and both men felt rather contented, doing their best to forget what had happened a month earlier involving the spectacular implosion of the last wedding.

Yes, at the moment, everything was peaceful, quiet, and above all, pretty relaxing. "Look Tendo, it's the USS Saratoga smashing through the wall!" Genma exclaimed, pointing behind his friend, who merely nodded, keeping his eyes firmly set on the board.

"Worth a try, Saotome, worth a try." Soun chuckled, reaching forward and sliding a piece. As he was about to release it, however, his arm stiffened. "Saotome..." He said, his voice sounding nervous. "Do you... feel that?"

"Feel what?" Genma asked, suspecting that his friend was trying to get him to stop paying attention to the game.

Soun's face turned grey, and he let go of the piece he was holding, his hand reaching for his pocket. For a moment, his oldest friend wondered what he was doing, before Soun withdrew quite an unusual looking item.

It looked like a clear ball, made of thick glass, until the man in the brown Gi tapped on it for a moment, causing a small glyph in its center to begin glowing.

Genma paled. "You don't mean..." He started, and his friend nodded solemnly. "I don't wanna die," he mumbled, but eventually stood, letting out a long sigh. "Lead the way, Soun ol' buddy."

Soun nodded, as Genma felt inside of his Gi for a rather similar looking ball that he carried, this one much more opaque and colored a light blue.

HR.

Ranma woke to the sound of several dozen girls screaming in rage. This wasn't particularly new to him, aside from maybe the number of girls, but it was considerably less boring than the math class he'd passed out during, and if what he thought was happening was, in fact, happening, it meant a good fight.

He hoped that it was the old freak again, so that he could pound him for the incident at the wedding. Granted, He, Ryoga and Mousse had already done so, his father deciding not to for some reason, but it was always therapeutic.

Leaping up from his chair and then straight out the window down to the schoolyard, the pigtailed boy blinked at what he saw.

There, in the middle of the gym field, were several dozen girls, all suspended in mid-air by what looked like whips of darkness. He noted that Nabiki was one of them, the only one who wasn't screaming, though she was glaring darkly at him as though he'd just stolen her life savings.

He raised his hands in the universal "It wasn't me" symbol, before charging towards the field, gathering Chi around himself as he went. Leaping up for Nabiki first, since he knew that if he didn't he'd be facing debtor's prison for the next thirty years, he lashed out at the line holding her... and his hand, then the rest of his body, promptly fell right through it.

"What the hell?" He asked, righting himself as he hit the ground. Jumping again, he tried to grab the strange black thing a little further from the middle Tendo, and promptly jumped through it again. "Huh..." He muttered, confused.

"No Huh, Saotome, get me down from he... Eeeeeh!" Nabiki squeaked, as the blackness moved up her body for a moment, and withdrew, somehow, with her bra without having taken off her shirt. As the undergarment started floating away, Ranma began to follow, paying little heed to Nabiki's yelling for him to get her down.

"Don't worry, I think I know who's doing it, 'n I'll stop 'em!" He yelled back, running along beneath the floating lingerie. Sure enough, within a few moments, the pigtailed martial artist noticed that several more black lines were joining the one he was running under, and there were bras and panties floating down each of them. "How the hell'd the letch pull this off?" he mumbled sourly, skidding around a corner to see the Kendo team's clubhouse in the distance. On its roof sat the gnome of the hour, Happosai, laughing maniacally and rolling around in a very large pile of panties.

Ranma smirked, charging forward and leaping into the air, coming down with an axe kick that would likely hurt like hell when it connected. Unfortunately, it didn't, as a wisp of the black stuff snapped out from Happosai's body and the pigtailed martial artist stopped dead in his tracks.

"Oh Ranma, m'boy, how're you this afternoon?" The old letch asked, stopping his frolicking for a moment to smile up at the suspended martial artist as though he were an old friend.

"Shut up 'n stop whatever you're doin, old man," Ranma growled back struggling to try and change his position, somehow.

Happosai shook his head sadly. "M'boy, you really have to learn to appreciate the silky darlings!" He declared. "Why, I'm sure if you wore some while you were a girl, you'd understand!"

"Yeah, right." Ranma grumbled, taking a fifty yen coin from his pocket and wincing as he chucked it at the old man's head at high speed. Happi just caught it, slipping it inside his Gi, and cackled again.

"Aha!" He yelled in triumph, producing a set of panties from the depths of his pile and showing them with a flourish. "Take a look at these beauties, for example."

shaking his head to get the garments out of his face as the old man pushed them into it, Ranma growled, finally getting fed up. Stretching one hand out, he collected a ball of confidence energy in the palm, and fired it at Happosai and his collection. The old man dodged, however Ranma's main goal was accomplished as the strange shadow that held him vanished, letting him fall to the ground.

"You little punk!" Happosai screamed, as he looked back to where a decent portion of his new collection smoldered. "I'm going to beat you until you learn to regret that, then I'll make you model all my new silky darlings! You don't know who you're messing with!" He screamed, shaking his fists rapidly. Ranma considered just standing there and smirking to piss him off more, but as his danger sense flared in the back of his mind, he pitched himself to the side just in time to avoid a tendril of the strange blackness that had caught him before.

"What the hell is that?" He wondered, springing back as the thing came around to grab him again.

HR.

Nabiki grumbled as she brushed grass off of her legs. The day had been going far too well so far before whatever it was had hit her and the rest of her class, and she fully intended to make whoever had done it pay through the nose, even after Saotome was done with them. But first, she thought, as she felt a draft running across parts of her bottom that she pretty much never wanted exposed, she needed new shorts.

Looking around rapidly, she noted that there were several boys standing nearby, gaping in her general direction. Smirking, she straightened and strode towards them, tugging her shirt down for some degree of modesty, but trying not to show it. "Hey you guys, Two thousand yen for the show!" She called, glaring over the group.

All but one of the boys scowled at her after this, though they fished said money out of their pockets, handing it over and muttering about the ice queen. "Well?" She asked, walking up to said odd man out, who was fidgeting and burying his hands in his pockets.

"I... I don't have any money," He croaked, tremulously.

"Oh, that's all right," Nabiki said, cheerfully. "I'll take your pants instead."

"M... my pants?" The boy asked, gulping, and at Nabiki's nod and steady look, he sighed, undoing his belt and stripping them off.

"Thank you, and have a nice day," Nabiki said neutrally, picking the uniform blue pants off of the ground and starting to step into them. When she heard a loud explosion from nearby, she sped up this process, securing them tight with the boy's belt and starting for the source. It sounded like whoever had done this was a real threat, or at least enough for Ranma to bring out Chi blasts for, and that meant fight bets.

As she stepped towards the conflict, which reminded her that it was still there through a second explosion, she glanced over to her own side and waved one of the girls over, who started walking next to her. "Yes, Nabiki-san?" The girl asked, nervously.

"Two thousand yen," Nabiki said, holding out her hand.

"Wait, how'd you.." The girl asked, blinking at the mercenary Tendo oddly.

"You should wipe off your chin," Nabiki said, and after accepting her money, smirked. Sure, she'd gotten a little humiliated, but she'd also made about fifty thousand yen, and that was all that was important, right?

"Nabiki, do you know what's going on?" The middle Tendo looked up to see her younger sister looking at her, flushed with rage and carrying a large wooden mallet that she'd apparently gotten from the janitor's closet.

"Got me, Sis," the middle Tendo confessed, "But lover boy's gone to fix it."

Akane nodded, running ahead of her sister until she reached the corner of the school building, where she stopped in shock. "Wow, he's mad," She observed inn slight aw.

For a moment, Nabiki wondered what she meant, until she came around as well, and saw a picture that would have been funny if it weren't happening in real life and in front of them, in stead of Looney Toons.

Ranma was hopping around in his usual, ping-pong ball on speed fashion, but the surprise was that Happosai was there, standing in one place and chucking bomb after bomb at the swiftly dodging boy, while black tendrils whipped around in a rapid pattern. "You will pay for destroying my silky darlings!" The old man shrieked, chucking a new bomb that looked about twice the size of his usual.

Ranma didn't respond, slightly too caught up in dodging like a madman to really have anything to say, but Akane did. Readying her mallet at the shoulder, she charged, yelling a battle cry at the little old bastard who dared to steal her panties and bra... again.

Nabiki couldn't really blame her sister, but still winced at the almost inevitable result. Akane managed to deflect four bombs that were thrown at her, but the fifth knocked her and her mallet in different directions.

Noting a small tag floating down on the wind nearby, the mercenary Tendo snatched it out of mid-air. "Do not attempt to hit old perverts with this Hammer." She mumbled, and shrugged.

HR.

How far now, Tendo?" Genma asked, as he ran after his old friend, who was diligently studying the little ball in his hand.

"Not much further, Saotome," The other returned, "but it looks like the power source he's using is pretty strong."

"Damn it," Genma cursed. He'd known that this day would eventually come, no matter how long he'd dodged it by playing along with the old man's games. Even the sealing had been only a temporary reprieve, but he'd hoped that the child who could wield the weapon would be born by the time it got this far. "Stupid boy, not marrying Akane like I told him," he grumbled, under his breath.

"Now Saotome, it really wouldn't have mattered if this had happened anyways," Soun said, in a voice that was so reasonable that it would have shocked most of his family if they'd have heard it. "Ah, and we're here!"

"You don't have to be so happy about it, Tendo," Genma grumbled, worrying, not for the last time, about his best friend's sanity. Leaping over the wall of Furinkan high school just behind the brown clad man, the older Saotome had to whistle at the destruction being perpetrated.

As he saw what was doing it, he had to whistle again. He didn't quite know how the master had gotten what he had, but it was powerful, and Ranma looked very outmatched. For a moment, the heavy set man considered running, but he knew that he'd be found. It had nothing to do with the fact that his son was in danger... really.

As he thought this last, Akane charged into the middle of the fight, and was blown backwards by an explosive. What happened next was almost predictable, as Soun charged forward, aura building and Samurai armor appearing on his body as he did so. "Akane-chan!" He cried, outraged, but didn't get far as a tendril of black energy grabbed him, throwing him into the air and over the school building.

Ranma, on the other hand, was much more effective. "Moko-Takabisha!" The boy cried, and as the older man deflected the blast effortlessly, he was actually surprised to see Ranma running in behind it, fists raised. "Kachu Tenshin Amaguriken!" He yelled, but the old pervert nimbly leapt over or around each of the blows, before finally responding with his pipe, sending the pigtailed martial artist stumbling back and into a shadowy line.

"Finally," Happosai cackled, and when Ranma prepared to blast him again, there was a flurry of movement, and Akane floated in front of the grand master of anything goes. "Just try it, boy." The man said, dangerously. "All I wanted was to have my fun but it seems you people won't let me," He grumbled, moving Akane to the side a bit, while she squirmed and hurled implications of grievous bodily harm. "Now Ranma, give me your word that you'll never oppose me again."

"What?" Ranma asked, glaring at the old man.

"Yes, and that you'll wear my silky darlings whenever I want you to, that too!" The other proclaimed, crossing his arms over his chest.

"No way in..." Ranma started, before the little man shook his head, and Akane floated away, eventually hanging over the school's pool.

"Now think about this, M'boy," Happosai said, gravely, and Ranma gulped.

"I... I..." The young man said, his throat catching at what he knew he had to do.

"Ranma, don't do it, I can swim well enough to get out of the water," Akane said, glaring at the old man heatedly, even though she knew better. She'd needed to be almost wrapped in flotation devices the one time she'd made it across a pool.

Ranma opened his mouth again, half way through articulating his surrender, when his father interrupted. "Hey, what am I, chopped liver?"

"Like you'd do anything, you spineless worm," Happosai sniffed, derisively.

"You're right, master," Genma said, still very nervous of the much older man, but reaching into his gi, he came out with the small blue marble from before. "Think fast, boy. Its name's Darkfire." Saying this, he chucked the marble at his son, who caught it in a state of nearly complete confusion.

"Darkfire?" Ranma asked, "What the hell is..." As he said this, Happosai's eyes widened, and he cursed.

"You still have that?" He demanded. "Ranma, drop it, or the girl WILL die."

Ranma started to open his hand, but as he did so, the marble in it started to glow, and a seemingly robotic male voice announced "Stand by, Ready." The glow increased as the voice announced "Set up," and Ranma's body exploded in a red light.

"What's happening?" He asked, still suspended in mid-air, though now it was full of light.

"Current situation is critical. Mirroring clothing for Barrier Jacket. Weapon type?" The voice from before asked, and Ranma blinked.

"Weapon type?" He repeated. "Um, I use staves, when I have to."

"Weapon type confirmed, staff," The voice announced, and the light grew brighter for a moment before receding. This was, of course, just in time to drop Ranma on the ground.

The pigtailed martial artist was about to ask what was going on again, but as he saw Happosai prepping a bomb, and heard a splash, his eyes widened.

"Take care of the Master, boy, I'll get Akane!" He heard his father yell, and Ranma turned back to the grand master of anything goes, getting into a ready position and blinking as he felt a staff materializing in his hands. "Okay..." He said, slowly. "I'm gunna kick yer ass for threatening Akane, got it?"

The ancient pervert shook his head. "You can try, but even with that intelligent device, you're no match for me, and it's time you truly learned how outmatched you are!"

Ranma just shrugged, disregarding the part of the old man's comment that he couldn't understand, and charged towards him with his staff ready.

HR.

"Captain Hewlette, we're picking something up on sensors!" A young woman reported from a set of consoles near the front of a gleaming white room, several arcane looking pictographs flickering across the walls.

"Hmm?" her commander asked, taking a quiet sip of the small bottle of Sake that was sitting before him and sighing at how well the cool liquid rolled down his throat. "What is it?"

"An intelligent device nearby has sent out its universal distress call, sir. The transponder's old, so I can't make out its name." The woman reported, typing rapidly on her keyboard. "It appears to be coming from Non-regulated planet HF, in Dimensional plane C-N-C-O-S-O-T"

"Hmm, that's only a few hours away," The man said, raising his hand to his chin and stroking it contemplatively. "Commander Creyton, do we have any urgent orders that would be delayed if we checked it out?"

"No, sir." A strangely young looking man with dark purple hair who sat in a chair nearby reported, Our last message from STAB headquarters only had us taking mapping missions."

Captain Hewlette nodded decisively. "All right then, change course and head to the source of the signal at best speed," He said. "I'll go notify our resident Combat Mage to prepare for any trouble."

"Yes, sir." The first officer said, with a grin.

HR.

Akane held her breath as she slid deeper into the water, weekly waving her hands and feet to try and move herself back up to the surface. She knew that she wasn't very good at swimming, but this was important. Happosai'd apparently gone insane, and was fighting Ranma in the school's front yard, and she wanted to help. Sighing in relief, she felt her feet hit the bottom, and coiled her legs beneath herself before jumping as hard as she could.

The light got closer for a glorious few seconds, before gravity took a hold of the muscular girl, and she started falling again, her lungs burning for air. Fortunately for her, that was about when a massive, fur covered hand caught her by the arm and pulled.

The youngest Tendo broke the surface of the pool gasping for air and coughing up water, hanging on to the edge of the pool side as though it were her life line, which it likely was. "Hey sis, you all right?" Nabiki asked, kneeling down next to Genma's panda form and looking at her younger sister with a quickly hidden relieved expression on her face.

"...Yeah..." Akane said, between heavy breaths. "What's going on?"

"Maybe you should look for yourself," Nabiki drawled, as Genma offered a paw to help the girl out of the water. Akane nodded, taking the appendage and hauling herself out, before she blinked at what was on display before her.

There, Ranma was standing and holding a strange, metallic and sectioned looking staff in front of himself, while Happosai struck it with the shadow bindings that had so easily immobilized all of them before. He also seemed to have somehow changed outfits, as his red silk now had some sort of armored pads on the shoulders, elbows and wrists, and the same kinds of armor were visible on his knees. The oddest part, however, was that he was actually wearing shoes, both of them a mixture of red and black.

"Wow, what's happening?" the blue-black haired girl asked, blinking rapidly.

Hearing a growf and a sniffle from her side, she looked over to see Genma wiping one eye with a paw and holding up a sign that said "That's my boy!"

"Okay, Saotome, where'd Ranma get the shiny staff?" Nabiki asked, wanting to go and offer odds to a steadily growing horde of students who were gathering at the windows of the building, but not entirely sure how to set them.

Genma sighed and began writing on a sign, as Ranma suddenly began to glow.

HR.

At the moment, Ranma Saotome was confused. He was also fighting Happosai on a much more even footing ever since strange, blue glowing shields had started appearing in front of him every time the old man threw one of his new dark waves at him, however there was also a stream of information running through the back of his mind, most of which he'd never seen before, and a lot of which seemed to be related to the shield.

Trying to ignore this, the martial artist charged in, noting that the shield stayed in front of him as he did so, and swung his staff around to try and hit Happosai in the head. Unfortunately, the pervert saw this coming, bringing his pipe out from his purple gi and using it to redirect Ranma's energy, sending him shooting into the air as per usual.

Regaining his balance and still flying up due to momentum, the younger martial artist studied the schoolyard where he'd been fighting and couldn't help but whistle at the damage. The front yard was pretty close to unrecognizable, and there were several craters that actually breached the edges of the pool, widening it significantly. Combined with the fact that half of the front wall was blown down, it was looking like the place could actually be closed down for a few days.

Starting to descend, Ranma's eyes turned back to Happosai, as the gi clad man glared up at him, preparatory to throwing more bombs. Really, at range that seemed to be his only trick, though Ranma had to admit that the Moko-Takabisha was similar, and he didn't want to use the Kijiin Raishu Dan on the old freak, at least not yet. He sort of wished he had something else, but...

"Insufficient power." The pigtailed boy flinched as he heard that, and looked down at the staff in his hand.

"Huh?" He asked, blinking stupidly at it, as a small blue jewel inset into one end blinked.

"Insufficient power for requested spell program," the staff said this time, and Ranma noted that the end blinked with every word it said.

"So ya can do somethin to the ol' freak if you get more power, huh?" Ranma asked, and though the device didn't respond, he got the feeling that he was correct. "Well, if you say so," he decided, and began channeling Chi into the strange smooth metal under his hands.

"Unfamiliar energy source," the staff noted, and Ranma was about to reverse his Chi infusion, when the object clicked rapidly several times, an aperture opening at the bottom end and emitting a long, thin beam of golden energy. "Tiger Sniper," it announced, as the bolt smacked into Happosai's face, sending him sliding across the ground, and Ranma landed with a negligible impact where he'd started.

"Huh, so this thing does have uses other than blockin attacks," the pigtailed martial artist muttered, ignoring as a sense of irritation ran through his mind. releasing the weapon with his right hand, he blasted the old man with a Moko-Takabisha while he was trying to recover, sending him back to the ground. "All right, ol' freak, gimme whatever you're using to pull this crap off." he demanded, striding forward.

As he heard this, the martial arts master's eyes narrowed, and he hauled himself to his feet, trembling. Any thought that it may have been in fear was dispelled as a bright blue aura burst out around him, mixing with the blackness that he'd been commanding earlier. "I think it's time to stop playing around with you, you insolent little punk," he spat, stretching out an arm and letting loose his own Chi attack, almost catching Ranma completely flat footed.

Even so, the younger man managed to roll to the side, his opponent's attack slamming into the side of the school. "Fine, he wants ta get 'serious' like a bad guy in DBZ, I'll let 'im," he grumbled, pushing off the ground and charging along beside the still firing beam. As Happosai finally let up, he smirked at the rubble he'd caused for a moment, until Ranma's fist smacked into the top of his head.

The second blow was easily blocked, and the two began exchanging blows at high speed, the old man matching the Amaguriken, and dodging like mad. Ranma frowned as the smaller fighter grabbed his left wrist, trying to twist it and make him let go of the staff he was wielding. Admittedly, he'd found it, and the armoring it was somehow giving him against his opponent's blows, useful, but Ranma wondered if it was somehow more important than that.

He normally didn't like using weapons in combat, but Happosai was just plain stronger than he was, and he knew that he was just barely holding him back right now. "If the stick had more tricks up its sleeve, he wouldn't be adverse to using them. As if in response to his thoughts, which it in fact was, the weapon reported "Insufficient Mana for High Capacity Operation, alternate energy source effects unknown."

"I don't really care," The pigtailed fighter said, and began pumping Chi into the weapon, laying his right hand back on it and sweeping it in a complex staff kata to clear the area in front of him as Happosai moved backwards.

"Understood. Close Quarters Combat Mode Setup. Redirecting resonance systems to new energy source." The weapon responded, beginning to click again as its end seemed to reform, a blade of golden energy forming there and converting it into a beam Naginata.

Ranma twitched as an odd sensation seemed to wash over his body, but did his best to shrug it off as he pointed the newly formed weapon at Happosai and began to smirk, assuring himself that he could beat the old man and noting that the blade was gaining definition as he did so.

HR.

"Well, Saotome, it might actually be happening," Soun Tendo sniffed, as his best friend and former partner stepped up next to him, Akane walking beside him. Nabiki had gone moments before to start taking bets.

"Mmh," Genma grunted, his panda eyes steadily fixed on the combat before the three, but Akane had a lot more to say.

"Dad, you know what's going on?" She demanded. "Why's Happosai doing this, and what's Ranma wearing?"

"It's a long story, Akane, and we should probably tell it with Ranma present," Soun said softly, "But I can tell you this now, if Ranma defeats the master in this battle..." He shook his head. "Things are definately going to change.

"Well, that's completely unhelpful," Akane muttered, sourly, before she saw the combat increase to a critical speed, Ranma's arms and blade blurring as he parried increasingly furious attacks by the old man, who was using both his pipe and hands. As they started to become too fast for even Akane's trained eyes to follow, A loud voice that she'd been hearing periodically already announced "Capture field."

Happosai's eyes widened, and he started to jump back, but Ranma stopped him with an axe kick to the back of the head as several tendrils of blue-white swirled around him, securing the other's arms and legs tightly. Only a second later, a tiny glimmer of blue light seemed to rip itself free of his Gi top, floating above his head.

"Ranma, collect that!" Soun yelled, causing the black haired boy to look over at the group for a moment, before reaching out one hand to grasp the blue object. As he held it, it seemed to turn to white light, sliding into the orb just below the blade of the Najinata. "Unknown Artifact, Serial XXI, sealed." The strange male voice announced, and Ranma looked down on Happosai as he squirmed in his confinement of light. "Looks like I won this time, ol' man." He smirked, rearing back to punt the master of Anything Goes into next week.

As he did, a sign flew at him, smacking into an invisible barrier while the staff announced "Protection."

Looking down at the sign, he read "Don't be stupid, boy. We need to keep him where we can see him!"

Ranma just shrugged, turning and walking towards Akane and the fathers, and leaving Happosai to snarl curses at his back. "Fine, but you're gunna tell me what the hell's goin on here, Pop," He declared, looking straight at the Panda.

HR.

"Captain, something new on that distress call we received!" The woman sitting in the front of the strange looking control center announced.

"Hmm?" Captain Hewlette asked, looking up from a report he was reading. "Report."

"The distress call's stopped, but we've gotten a preliminary mission completion report."

"Are there any missions being conducted out here?" The captain asked, frowning in confusion.

"None currently, no." commander Creyton reported. "I pulled all the reports, and about all we have on this section of the multiverse is that it's mostly harmless." The captain quirked an eyebrow, and the commander smiled sheepishly. "Sorry, sir, I was reading..." He shook his head. "Nevermind."

"All right," Hewlette said, rubbing his chin. "What's the completion report say?"

"STAB Support Team Theta 4 reporting successful completion of mission. Criminal 'Happosai' captured. Casualties: Kimiko Tendo, plus most hardware and two of the team's devices. Mission completed by 'Unknown Operative' and Intelligent Device 'Darkfire.'"

"I'm looking now, sir." Commander Creyton announced. Seconds later, his eyes widened. "Theta 4, they were dispatched on that mission twenty years ago. Disappeared during the pursuit, and only one member ever returned through the emergency beacon they'd carried."

"Well then, it looks like they've managed to come back after all. Let's keep heading for their position and see what happens next." The captain ordered. "Also, send a priority message to headquarters informing them what we've found." As the crew began to work at their tasks, he frowned. He supposed that their resident mage wouldn't be happy about this one, but then, he'd never flat out promised there'd be combat.

Turning, the man walked from the bridge as light exploded across the windows, and the STAB exploratory ship Typhon jumped dimensions.

END.


	2. Chapter 1: Panda Skin Rug

Chapter 1: Panda Skin Rug.

The Tendo residence was strangely silent as Soun, Genma, Ranma and the three Tendo daughters sat around the dining room table, with the hardly noticeable exception of Happosai, who was cursing all of their ancestries from the next room over. "Okay," Ranma said, as he flipped a tiny blue marble from finger to finger, watching as it seemed to gleam back at him. "What's goin on here?"

"Well, um," Soun said, uncertain of how to answer the question. Truthfully, he'd been acting as though the device the boy was now holding, and all it represented, hadn't existed for more than ten years, especially after his wife died. "It's... hard to," he began, only to have Genma interrupt him.

"That device is an heirloom of the Saotome family, boy," the balding man said, gruffly. "I've been waiting for the time to pass it down to you, but you've never been ready for it. Truth be told, I believe you still aren't, but it needed to be used to defeat the Master."

"Negative," the gem in question proclaimed, causing Ranma to almost drop it in shock. He knew that it had talked earlier, but it had been quiet ever since the battle had ended, and the armor it had created around his body had been replaced by his usual clothes.

"Shut up, you," Genma snarled, glaring at the jewel.

"Negative," it replied again, and this time, it seemed to Ranma, a sense of irritation could be heard in the thing's perfectly monotone robotic voice.

"C'mon, ol' man," the boy grumbled. "Why not tell the truth for once?"

"You insolent little brat!" Genma thundered, lunging across the table to grab Ranma by the collar and glare into his eyes. "I've never lied to you in my life!"

Ranma's incredulous look was evident long before the device came out with another "Negative," this one, to the pigtailed boy, almost sounding like it was broken up with snickers.

"Hmm, seems that thing's got a brain," Nabiki drawled, looking speculatively at the little jewel and wondering how much talking rocks went for on the market.

"Nabiki-chan, that's not very nice," Kasumi rebuked. "Of course it has a brain." She tilted her head consideringly. "Or some metaphysical equivalent."

"All right," Akane said, looking oddly at her oldest sister for a moment. "Insulting Uncle Genma's fun and all, but can someone explain what's really going on here?"

Genma just sputtered in a state of near total fury, while Soun looked between his three daughters and his younger houseguest. Sighing, he began, "I suppose I should tell you."

"But Tendo, you can't!" Genma objected. "The secrecy regulations! We're already in deep as it is, and the boy likely sent off a distress signal when he changed!"

Soun rolled his eyes. "Saotome, old friend, you and your son turn into other things when splashed with water. I doubt this planet is still under the Magical Secrecy Act."

"This planet?" Nabiki asked, her eyes widening.

"Oh, are you trying to follow the Prime Directive?" Kasumi inquired serenely.

"Not exactly," Soun amended, and then sighed, his eyes beginning to fill with tears as he began to recall the past. Still, he managed to restrain them, helped greatly by being able to stare into the next room, where the bane of his existence was squirming in a set of magical bindings, his arms locked in a very excruciating looking position.

"Happosai was not Genma's and my Martial Arts Master," the eldest Tendo started. "He was actually a criminal we were chasing. Unfortunately, he was far more powerful than we thought, and destroyed most of our gear, stranding us on Earth."

"Wait, stop," Nabiki said, raising her hand and waving it back and forth. "Happosai's a criminal, and he trapped you on this 'planet.'" she made little air quotes around the last word. "What, you're trying to tell me that you and Saotome are space cops or something?"

"Well, Pop is dumb enough to be Mihoshi," Ranma chipped in, having empathized rather a lot with a certain fictional Masaki.

"Hey!" Genma grumbled, not knowing what that meant, but knowing that a name like Mihoshi sounded pretty girly.

"Actually, interdemensional," Soun contributed, ignoring the byplay between father and son, and addressing his comment to Nabiki. "Most of what we've done over the past twenty years was to find a way to permanently capture Happosai and get a call back to headquarters. We've done the former already," he explained, gesturing to the old freak, "and with Ranma's new Intelligent Device, the latter won't be that hard."

"Intelligent Device, that's the marble?" Ranma asked, holding up said item.

"Yes, it is," an unfamiliar female voice said from behind him, "And I would ask you to put it down and turn slowly."

"Oh crap," Genma muttered, his face going white, though Soun had a far stranger reaction.

"Oh, thank goodness you're here!" He crowed, jumping up and rocketing past the pigtailed boy, incidentally knocking Akane over in his flight. As both young people recovered, turning to face the voice, which was now protesting feebly, they blinked.

Currently being crushed in a bare hug by Soun, and looking rather uncomfortable, was what looked like a short girl with very dark blue hair styled in a bob similar to Nabiki's. "You're here, and you can get us off of this backwater, and we can see Nodoka again, and the Master will never pester us, Oh, Happy day!" Soun exalted, causing all of his children to back away from him slowly, not used to this rapid attitude change.

"Get off of me," the girl grumbled, squirming to get free. When Soun didn't respond, she asked this more loudly, though nothing happened. Finally, as Akane was about to get up to pull her father gently back, a small green card appeared in the girl's hand, and she announced, "STU, Setup!"

There was a blinding flash of light, and Soun flew back a few feet, smashing into the table, and incidentally overturning a glass of Sake on Genma's legs. When the light cleared, the girl was wearing what looked like a military uniform, and held an intricate, but still serviceable crossbow in her right hand.

"Dad!" Akane yelled, jumping to her feet and taking a defensive position, quickly followed by Ranma, as Kasumi moved over to tend to her father, who was groaning and staring up at the ceiling.

"Okay, who're you?" Ranma asked, suspiciously, wishing that Akane would go over to Kasumi rather than trying to fight next to him, and wondering why there had to be two strange fights in one day. At the moment, he would be much happier if Ryoga had smashed down the wall, rather than some random fourteen year old magical girl teleporting in.

"I can't tell you that right now," the girl explained. "Which of you owns the Intelligent device that you were holding?" She asked, looking levelly at Ranma, though her weapon remained at her side.

"I think it's me," The pigtailed boy said uncertainly, still flicking the thing between his fingers, and not really liking the prospect of losing it, for some reason.

"Great way to hold things close to your chest, Saotome," Nabiki griped from nearby, but was thoroughly ignored by everyone.

"Were you the one who sent the mission completion report?" The girl asked.

"The mission what?" Ranma asked, more confused than, well, than he'd been in at least five days, since that guy with the cheese wiz based martial arts style had shown up.

The girl was about to say something, when a sign from Genma suddenly intruded between Ranma and Akane's standing defense and the newcomer. "The boy sent it!" It read, with several dozen exclamation marks. "And I'm just a cute little Panda!"

"You know something about this, Pop?" Ranma growled, snatching the sign out of the panda's hands and tossing it aside. Unfortunately, the Saotome patriarch wasn't inclined to answer any more questions, having retreated to the back yard and pulled a tire out of nowhere in the short time that Ranma had looked away to toss the sign.

The young martial artist sighed. "Figures," he grunted.

The newcomer girl looked nonplussed for a moment, before starting again. "Who hear defeated the criminal Happosai?"

"Okay, that one was me," Ranma said, proudly.

"Are you Genma Saotome or Soun Tendo?" The girl asked, giving Ranma an odd look. She'd read a report on her current mission, and from what she'd heard, the people she was looking for were about as old as the man who had glomped her when she'd teleported in, but the boy was holding an Intelligent Device, which meant that he had to be one of the agents.

"Genma's my ol' man, he's over there playing with the tire," Ranma said quickly, wondering what crap his father had gotten him into, and reaching out casually to catch the rapidly scribbled sign that said 'traitor!' on it in big, bold lettering.

"I see..." the girl drawled, slowly, before raising her weapon, and causing every one of the martial artists in the room to tense up. "STU, scan mode," she ordered, and several small white balls of light flew from the weapon's end, slowly circling the room.

"Scan detects three combat mages and three civilians. Two mages register light foreign magical fields," a female voice similar to the one that had come out of Ranma's marble rang out.

The girl quirked an eyebrow, but said nothing as she looked dubiously at Genma, before her eyes became somewhat distant, and her mouth began to move as though she were talking to someone. After a few seconds, where she cast her eyes between the collected group in the sitting room and Happosai's tied up form, she spoke again. "I'm going to have to ask you to return to my ship along with Happosai and I."

"I don't really like this idea..." Akane said, concerned, as she looked between the newcomer, her fiance, and her father who was looking slightly less like he'd taken a head long dive into the living room table. "I mean, we don't really know this person's name, or where they come from."

"I don't mind," Ranma responded. "Figure it'll let me know what's goin on here. Plus, your Dad seamed pretty happy about it."

"Yeah, but..." Akane started, before she was interrupted.

"My name's Marle, if that helps," the girl said, looking somewhat sheepish for not introducing herself earlier.

"Akane-chan, we should go, it will be so exciting to see a real space ship!" The eldest Tendo exclaimed, happily.

"I'm afraid," the girl who had now been identified as Marle, started reluctantly, "I can only take the three mages and the prisoner. Even letting normal civilians know I'm here is technically a violation of protocol."

"Oh," Kasumi said, and as she looked down, slightly disappointed, Marle felt like she'd just drop-kicked a basket of kittens out an airlock.

"If it helps, it's not really a spaceship," she hurriedly continued. "We use a special drive to cross dimensional barriers, and..." She abruptly snapped her mouth shut, horrified that she'd revealed so much. "Let's, um, let's go," she said, flustered.

"Ranma's not going without me," Akane objected, irritably. "The idiot could get himself in trouble or something!"

"She just said ya couldn't come, 'kane," Ranma objected, and seeing the blue-black haired girl's face darkening, he continued, "Besides, it's space, or another dimension, or whatever. I'm pretty sure Pop hasn't sold me ta anyone up there... yet."

"Growf!" Genma said angrily, and then wished that he hadn't, as it had drawn attention from everyone in the room. "I'm just a cute panda," he scribbled, hurriedly, and then tried to bolt, before Ranma moved, grabbing him by the fur at the back of his neck and pulling hard. "This is cruelty to animals!" The panda objected, but was quite easily ignored, as Kasumi helped Soun to his feet, and he, Ranma, Genma and Marle gathered around Happosai, who was starting to struggle and curse again.

The three Tendos watched as a column of light surrounded their father and the others, and they vanished leaving not so much as singed tatami.

"Okay, this is weirder than usual," Nabiki noted, while Kasumi whispered something about Norse gods, and Akane looked worried.

HR.

Ranma Saotome was impressed. This didn't happen often, as through his travels he'd seen some of the most beautiful landscapes in Asia, even if he'd then ended up tossed off, at, or through them, but he was. The ship he was on seemed like a giant mass of shiny white corridors, with windows that looked out on a coruscating blue world that was kind of hard to look at for a long period of time.

He hadn't even noticed when his father and Mr. Tendo had been lead off a few minutes ago, apparently to meet the captain, until his guide stopped, tapping a button next to a door and leading him into a small room with two couches and a table, on which was a plate full of food.

The girl sat down on one of the couches, and gestured for him to do the same, before fixing him with a rather strangely intent stare. "Um, you're not engaged to me, are you?" He asked, as though the stare wasn't the same as the one he usually got from his fiancees, it was never a bad idea to check.

Marle very nearly spat the tea she'd just taken a careful sip of. "What?" She asked, deadpan.

"Well, Pop likes engaging me to girls for really stupid reasons, 'n you're a girl, even if you're a bit younger than usual, so I figured it was possible," the pigtailed martial artist quickly explained.

"No," Marle continued, her eyebrow twitching. "I'm not engaged to you. I'm supposed to be debriefing you while the captain questions your father and Mr. Tendo."

"Oh," Ranma said, and then his eyes widened. "So that stuff about them being space police was true?"

"Combat mages, actually," Marle corrected. "You don't know anything about this? You're using an Intelligent device."

"Well, Pop just sorta tossed this thing to me and told me its name was Darkfire or something," Ranma said. "Helped me out against whatever the ol' pervert was using, though."

"So your father gave you a magical artifact with no experience, explanation or training?" The girl asked. At Ranma's nod, she grumbled, "I don't suppose his brain is actually a Panda's along with the rest of him?"

Ranma couldn't help himself, as he snorted in laughter. He'd actually never thought of that particular insult, and quite liked it. "He's pretty dense," he explained.

"All right," Marle said, reaching over onto the table and tapping a button. "Could you please tell me what happened? Then I will have to ask you to turn over the device you're using, since it's Bureau property."

"Um, I guess so," Ranma said, shrugging and beginning to explain what had happened this morning.

HR.

The ferret ran. It actually ran pretty fast for a ferret, as its tiny little legs churned beneath it, almost creating a dust cloud. Behind it, a black cloud of... something... seemed to hump its way along like a slug, leaving burnt grass and snapped branches in its wake.

At the moment, the ferret was more scared than it had been in its entire rather short life, and was calling itself ten different kinds of idiot, including a few that were in languages forever lost to most.

Rapidly changing its course so that it was running down a beaten dirt track, the ferret noticed that there were people walking down the road in front of it. As horrible as the thought was, it could be a good idea to distract the thing with the other people, so that it could get the chance to transform, activate the small bobble around its neck, and seal the damned thing.

It was pretty sure that it could mutter the chant quickly enough that no one would be badly hurt, but not one hundred percent, so as it ran it kept jerking off to one side, and then correcting its course as it realized that it was likely going to die.

Just as the small, golden furred animal was closing on the first person, a voice above it called ""Divine Retribution!" As the animal looked back, a lightning bolt came from above, shocking the black blob and causing it to lurch painfully to the side. Seconds later, a figure in what looked like a glorified boys school uniform descended on the blob wielding what looked, basically, like a katana mounted to a pole. As the blob split down the middle, the boy swung his weapon in an arc and commanded, "Sovnya, capture mode."

"Yes, Master." A soft voice came from the weapon, before six dark tendrils shot from a blue jewel mounted where the blade met the pole, binding the shadow together. As the ferret watched on in shock, a blue diamond shaped item shot out of the thing, and the boy raised his weapon to collect it.

'Could this be someone sent by the STAB?' the animal thought, dashing towards the boy's foot, and tugging on his pants' leg. He looked down at it curiously, before bending and scooping it up. "Hmm," He muttered, studying the animal closely. "It's kind of cute, isn't it?" He gently patted it on the head.

""Thank goodness you're here, the jewel seeds have to be found quickly!" The ferret telepathically projected, and the boy jumped.

Narrowing his eyes, the boy noted a small red jewel tied around the thing's neck, and frowned. "Interference," he muttered, sadly, before tugging the jewel free and tossing the ferret against a nearby tree. "Stay out of my way."

Yuuno Scrya coughed loudly as he hit the ground, wondering precisely what had just happened, as the boy walked off into the forest nearby. For just a moment before the pain of the impact made him lose consciousness, he thought that he'd made a terrible mistake.

HR.

"Why are you so damned happy," Genma growled, as he and Soun sat in a holding room, waiting for the captain of this ship to talk to them.

"Don't you get it Saotome? We're finally going back home," the eldest Tendo said. "We won't have to deal with that backwater again."

"Right," The Saotome snapped. "After we're finished with the court martial for aiding a known criminal, contaminating a Non-Regulated planet, defacing Bureau property, and nineteen and a half years of unpaid rent."

"You don't really think they'll..." Soun started, worriedly.

"Of course they will," Genma muttered. "And you don't actually think they'll let you take your daughters back," the balding man kept right on pushing, deciding that if he had to face reality, so did his former partner.

"No," Soun said, horrified. "They won't take them from me!" suddenly, the man had a demon head filling the room, and Genma was actually kind of intimidated. The demon head was about the last bit of Magic Soun could pull off, or at least the last bit he was motivated to do, ever since he'd become terminally depressed about being stuck on Earth, and then his wife had died eight years later to hammer things home.

"Look, I'll be happy to see No-chan again, and maybe being in a bureau prison will be better than trying to make my way back there," Genma said, trying to get the other to dispel his demon head. "But things aren't exactly rosy, Soun.

The taller man sighed, his demon head shrinking. "At least we finally put away the Master," he said, most of his cheer from seeing the Combat mage and now the ship vanishing.

Genma nodded. "At least we got him," he agreed, and then frowned. "Now, we should probably get our story straight on how we got him, or we're going to be in even more trouble."

Soun nodded.

HR.

In a small, dark room, a terminal beeped and a screen briefly flickered on to reveal a mess of computer print-outs, half-eaten food and rune covered papers. The beeping repeated several times, before the terminal screen flickered, the words "Message system active" taking over the screen, and a crisp, efficient sounding young man's voice echoed from the speakers. "Mrs. Saotome? This is STAB command. We need to speak with you urgently. Your Husband and Son have been found on a planet in the Non-Regulated regions. Please, call back as soon as you can." The voice faded away, and the screen blinked again, showing a list of dozens of unread message logs before shutting off.

HR.

"What do you mean you can't remove it?" Marle asked, as she leaned over Commander Crayton's shoulder, in the Typhon's main medical bay.

"Look here," the young man said, pointing at a diagram that anyone from Earth would say was a child's drawing after an accidental ingestion of hallucinogens. "We can't zero the Linker core to unbind it, since it's not bound to the linker core."

"Then how did he manage to activate it?" The girl asked, confused, throwing a quick glance to Ranma, who was laying on a bed half way across the room, his Intelligent Device hovering over his chest.

The commander shrugged. "It looks like it was somehow bound straight to his life force," he explained. "That sort of research has been outlawed for years, since we have no idea how to reverse it. We can't zero it like a Linker core, since that pretty much means killing someone."

"Great," the dark blue haired girl muttered. "Well, we can't exactly recover it if that means killing him, but we certainly can't let him go back with an artifact like that."

Creyton shrugged. "He already completed one mission," he offered. "Recruit him."

"WHAT?" Marle bellowed. "Are you insane?" Creyton gave her a steady look. "I mean, are you insane, sir?" She rephrased her earlier question.

Ranma turned his head for a moment at the sudden exclamation, but noting it was just a girl yelling at a guy, he returned his gaze to the hovering sphere above him.

"Look, it would only be in order to train the boy in the use of the device, so he can keep it controlled. Plus, it's always good to have an expert on local society around when you're looking for missing items on a planet," Creyton said, reasonably.

"Wait, we're looking for things?" Marle asked, confused.

"Oh yeah," Creyton said, snapping his fingers. "Command just got a mission in for us. Apparently some archeologist kid lost a bunch of artifacts on this planet. His transport fell out of dimensional drive or something. We've been ordered to find the missing items."

"How convenient," Marle muttered, sourly, and then looked over at Ranma. The commander's logic did make at least some sense, and the boy had been reasonably easy to get along with. Also, it was very possible that he'd just flat out say no, and they would give him just enough training to keep from accidentally activating his new found Intelligent Device and then leave him to it. 'Oh well, what's the worst that could happen?' she thought, before moving to the bed to explain the situation.

END.


	3. Chapter 2

Note: This story has been rewritten due to continuity screwups and because of major later plot restructuring. This note will be repeated in the new chapter. It shouldn't need a deep re-reading, just assume that any inconsistancies from the original version you read are things I changed, such as Marla becoming Marle.

Title has been changed, as the original was pretty stupid.

Sorry if you can't review because you did so before... Could I ask you to do Anon reviews?

Anyhow, I hope you like this new version of Chapter 2, and a guy named JSB likes this fic idea enough to pretty much do anything needed to keep me working on it... Maybe a half decent update schedule... hopefully... probably not.

STAB is intentional. You'll see why later.

Anyhow, shutting up. Have fun, folks!

Chapter 2: What Now?

Ranma shifted nervously in his chair as he looked around the small office, taking in his father's calculating expression, Mr. Tendo's apprehensive one, and the stern grey haired man sitting across the desk from him. He knew that the girl, Marle, was standing behind them as well, but didn't really think turning to get a look at her face was a very good idea.

"So basically, I agree to help on this mission, and prove myself or something, or end up getting experimented on 'till you figure out how to remove Darkfire and then dumped back on earth." The grey haired man winced. He had put it much more delicately, though Ranma had always found that if he didn't try and figure out what the underlying message was, he'd probably get caught on some technicality.

"Boy," Genma snapped, his expression changing to one of consternation.

"Right, and if I join up and prove I'm useful, the old man's distributing tech to a citizen of an unaffiliated planet charge goes away too." Ranma clarified, repressing a smirk as his father's expression changed once again, this time making him think he wanted to smack him over the head with a sign.

Captain Hewlett couldn't help but crack a small smile at this. "That about sums it up," he responded, deciding that if the boy wanted to look at it that way, and evidently not be horribly offended, he wouldn't say anything.

Ranma nodded, and leaned back in his chair for a moment, withdrawing his Intelligent Device from his shirt, where it hung from a chain he'd been given after he'd been analyzed earlier. For a moment, he wished that he hadn't been given the damned thing, but then, he wouldn't have been able to pulverize Happosai if that had been the case, and it apparently opened up a whole new field of combat arts for him to study. The only hitch was that gaining it meant that he would have to leave Nerima behind, and other than the Tendos, he couldn't think of many people there he would miss all that much, especially after the Wedding fiasco a few months earlier.

"All right, I'm in." He finally decided, dropping the little blue marble back into his shirt. This brought a noticeable sigh of relief from his father, and a nod from the captain.

"Good, then I'd like you to return to the Tendo home with Marle to inform Mr. Tendo's daughters of the situation, and gather any of your belongings that you will need." The STAB officer said, handing a small card over the desk that Ranma studied curiously as Soun sputtered in the background, yelling something about being able to talk to his babies. The card identified him as a STAB provisional recruit, and for a moment he wondered how they'd gotten it printed so quickly before he felt a tap on the shoulder and turned his head to see Marle, who motioned towards the door.

He wondered why she wasn't saying anything, until he heard the distinctive roar of the Tendo demon head and decided to follow her lead and get while the getting was good.

HR.

Yuuno woke with a splitting headache, sprawled out on the foliage that littered the base of a tall tree, and feeling as though he'd been used as a golf ball by a particularly bad golfer.

Raising his head, he sniffed and smelled smoke, which he quickly tracked back to a fire. When he saw who was tending it, he blinked rapidly. He felt that he must have had a pretty bad head injury, because standing unsteadily on a log that lined the fire pit was a pig, who was pushing a large kettle of water up onto a small metal stand.

He squeaked in startled surprise, and the pig turned its eyes to face him, what almost looked like human intelligence glimmering behind them. "Bwee?" it exclaimed, tilting its head to the side and studying him.

"Hello?" Yuuno projected, knowing that last time he'd tried that he'd been thrown into a tree.

The pig immediately bweed again, this time jumping backwards and making its best piggy attempt at a fighting stance. "No no, please, I don't want to fight you!" The young ferret continued, quickly, causing the pig to settle back onto all fours, looking over at the new animal speculatively, and then seeming to understand something.

The pig bweed again triumphantly, pointing towards the kettle, and nodded.

Yuuno blinked.

The pig blinked.

The kettle boiled.

The pig seemed to shrug in a uniquely porcine way, before it trotted over to the kettle and pushed it over, causing warm water to pour out onto the ground. What happened next Yuuno couldn't quite follow, but the pig rapidly blurred until it turned into a human man several years older than he was and walked over to pull a backpack out of the nearby trees.

When the man was dressed, he turned and looked at Yuuno oddly. "Aren't you going to change back?"

Yuuno looked confused for a moment, and then invoked the transformation magic that returned him to his normal nine year old human form. The pig man gaped at him, before rushing towards him and picking him up by the collar. "How did you do that without water?" he yelled, loudly and with a gleam that could be madness in his eyes.

"Hey, let go!" Yuuno yelped, squirming and wondering if he was going to be flying into a tree again any time soon. "I don't need to be beaten up again today!"

This caught the former pig by surprise, as the fact that someone had clearly changed from an animal to a human being was finally pushed aside in his mind by the fact that said human being looked young, scared, tired, and beaten up. He set Yuuno gently down, and nervously patted the top of his head before backing off and fidgeting with his hands. "Sorry about that," he said, rather sheepishly. "I was just surprised at your ability to transform back from your cursed form, and I over-reacted."

Yuuno nodded, relaxing somewhat and deciding that he would see what happened before attempting to run away, though he did start calculations for a shield spell in his head. "I don't have a curse," he explained. "I shift shapes with a spell."

"You know magic that can do that?" The older boy's expression seemed to glaze over for a few moments, before he asked, "Could you teach me?" Sure, he felt kind of stupid asking a little kid to teach him a technique, but then, Ranma had asked Hinako when she looked six, so this wasn't nearly as humiliating.

"Erm," The young archeologist frowned. He'd assumed, due to his transformation from a pig, and his lack of reaction to the original reference to a spell, that the fanged boy knew something about Midchilden magic. Still, with how he'd asked to be taught the shape shifting spell, that was starting to look unlikely, and Yuuno may have just dropped the secret to someone who really shouldn't have known. "I've got some artifacts I need to retrieve, and not everyone can..." he started, attempting to get out of the situation politely.

"I could help you look for them!" He was cut off, "You really shouldn't be traveling around a forest like this by yourself anyways. It's dangerous."

The younger boy blinked. He could have sworn that he was actually just in a medium sized city park, but then, the other did have a point about dangers in the area. At least, he looked a lot more prepared with his traveling pack, and may be able to drive off native threats that Yuuno himself couldn't use magic on. Besides, the pleading look on his face was starting to get disturbing. "All right," he finally decided. "I'll try to teach you what I do, if you help me find what I'm looking for, but there's a good chance it won't work if you don't have inborn magic."

The older man nodded. "There's a chance it will, and I really don't like roughing up a kid and leaving him in the middle of the woods anyways." he responded. "I'm Ryoga, by the way. Ryoga Hibiki."

"Yuuno Scrya," the boy responded, and the two shook hands.

HR.

Akane, Nabiki and Kasumi all knelt at one side of the living room table, glaring, frowning and smiling at the other side, respectively. The scene rather resembled the situation over two years earlier, when their father had told them about his old training partner and his son, who was meant to marry one of them. This time, however, aforementioned prospective fiancé was the recipient of the looks, along with a strange girl who had arrived in their living room in a pillar of light several hours earlier.

Their mixed expressions were once again the result of a shocking announcement, though this one, in many ways, was a lot more serious.

"I'm going." No one really expected the first response to be from Kasumi, including, most likely, herself,

"You don't wanna check out those documents they're offering, or anything?" Ranma asked, surprised.

"Father's going," Kasumi explained. "He apparently doesn't have a choice, and while I don't want to leave my sisters, he really shouldn't be left alone... " Next to the eldest Tendo, her middle sister's frown broke a little. Kasumi's reason was pretty good, and very true. Who knows what trouble her father and Genma could get into. Although she'd also seen her eyes light up when she'd been offered the opportunity to visit another world.

"I'm going too, then." Akane's reply was a lot more hesitant, though once she said it, she almost looked relieved. Ranma opened his mouth to enquire as to why she was going, though her glare, for once, caused him to snap his mouth shut and nod.

This, of course, left the middle Tendo as the last one to decide. "So you guys are going to help us set up if we go there?" She asked, looking over the few documents that had been presented to her, after it had been explained very carefully that conveniently 'losing' them would get her charged with espionage.

Marle, who had been silent, aside from a few corrections, while Ranma explained the situation, spoke up at this. "Yes. Your father is to be treated as an agent returning from a long tour, which means careful use of his funds would keep all of you comfortable for at least a year, and acclimatization courses are offered."

The brunette nodded. What had been explained to her, that all of the Midchildens on the planet were to be sent home, along with Ranma as he'd managed to get himself sucked into things again, made sense. The idea that the memories of anyone left behind would be modified, in order to make it seem they had left in normal ways also made sense, but it creeped the hell out of her. She didn't want anyone screwing around with her head. "I guess if you two are in, so am I." She finally said, sliding the information back to the STAB agent. "So, when do we leave and what can we take?"

HR.

Cologne of the Joketsu cursed as she felt a wave of... something... emanate from the Tendo Dojo, now less than a block away. She hadn't even figured out what was going on until Shampoo charged into the restaurant two hours earlier, freshly returned from a visit to her beloved at Furinkan, and reporting that the school had been totaled. The Amazonian matriarch hadn't really thought anything of it, but had decided to amble over to the Tendo residence and see what the Son-In-Law was up to when the afternoon rush was over.

Now, it seemed someone was throwing around a form of Chi or magic that she'd never felt before, and this was much more interesting a situation than she'd originally given it credit for.

Increasing her speed, she cleared the compound's outer fence in only a moment, noticing in passing that the front gate was left wide open, and there didn't appear to be any damage done to the premises. She was just beginning to get intrigued when she noticed a note nailed to the front door, written in what appeared to be Kasumi's neat, curving strokes. "The Tendo and Saotome families have moved out of this residence. All paperwork will be filed with the city within the week. All deliveries are no longer necessary. All important belongings have been removed, so help yourself to what's left. The door is unlocked, and no, Ranma was not left behind."

The ancient Chinese woman almost fell off of her staff as she read the note again. It was one of the strangest ways she'd ever heard of to move, and the energy she'd felt marked it as very suspicious. Frowning, she grabbed the paper and tore it down, heading back to the restaurant. This would require further investigation.

HR.

Yuuno sneezed, and attempted to curl in more tightly upon himself. He'd been rather thankful for several things when he'd first met Ryoga Hibiki. First, was that he'd met a native guide to the region who knew where he was going. This hope had been born out, as, though he'd somehow managed to convince himself he was in a small city park, Ryoga had ended up leading them out of the deep brush almost six hours later.

A second, and far more selfish reason the Archeologist was happy to find a traveling companion was that, judging by the size of Ryoga's traveling pack, he would have a tent, and Yuuno would no longer have to resort to finding a quiet tree to curl up under and hope his heating spell wouldn't randomly fail during the night. His hopes were dashed in this area, however, as it turned out that all Ryoga had were a couple of sleeping bags, and the temperature, for some reason, was a lot colder than he thought it should be in this part of the world. Twitching as he felt something cold and wet hit him in the cheek, he looked up from the tree he was huddling under in one of the older boy's sleeping bags, noticing that snow was falling. "Great..." he muttered , and started working on the heating spell.

HR.

Ranma was grinning like an idiot. That would be a rather strange scenario at almost any time, as his usual smiles were confident smirks, or joyful smiles at the thought of Kasumi's cooking, but the situation got even stranger given the fact that he was asleep, with a small glowing blue ball clutched in one hand.

At least, that was what his body was doing. His mind was in the middle of a long, complicated set of movements, as a hail of energy bolts streaked past him, crashing into the ground behind him. Nearby, the same blue glowing ball was sitting in mid-air, giving off a tangible, at least to him, sense of exasperation as the energy blasts increased in speed.

Ranma continued to move for several more minutes, the attacks getting closer and closer to him, until one finally hit, and he abruptly froze, before returning to a standing position in the black void in which he was floating. The idea of what he was doing now had never really come to him before, though he supposed, without Darkfire he wouldn't have been able to do it. He was unable to train his strength, speed, reflexes or Chi within his own mindscape, but it did allow him to test tactics and his own raw adaptability, especially since the device seemed very willing to come up with inventive and nasty ways of testing him.

"Is that the best ya got?" He asked, smirking at the floating marble.

"Level 2," it announced, and he grinned again, though he was rather startled when the black void reformed into several large pillars, none of which he was standing on. "Hey!" He yelped, flailing his arms, before managing to shove his body to the side and grapple one of the pillars while he fell, pushing off of it almost instantly as he heard the distinct hum of the simulated magical energy bolts. This, he decided, was definitely going to be fun.

HR.

"Would you wake up?" Ranma rolled to one side, grumbling irritably and batting away the arm that was shaking his shoulder. "This is important and I've got a bucket," This warning came shortly before a sloshing and clanking sound, followed by a loud splash. The splash woke Ranma quite suddenly, as she was on the receiving end of it, and she opened her eyes to reveal the white walls of a room she didn't recognize.

"Guh?" She asked, articulately, blinking water out of her eyes and letting them focus, revealing Akane standing at the end of the bed she was laying in. "What'd ya do that for, Tomboy?" She grumbled, spotting the bucket in her fiancée's hand.

"A call came in for you, they said it had something to do with 'Jewel Seeds,' and to go up to the bridge as soon as you could." Akane explained.

It took several seconds for the other girl's words to circulate through the redhead's mind, though eventually, she recalled the events of the day before, and realized that the room she was laying in was her newly assigned quarters aboard the STAB ship. "Wait, where'd you get a bucket on a space ship?" She finally asked, after having been staring at Akane for the past fifteen seconds or so.

"That's not important right now!" She growled, not wanting to admit that Kasumi had handed it to her when she'd told her to go wake Ranma, and she had no idea where her older sister had gotten it from. "Just get up there!"

"Okay, I'm goin," Ranma grumbled, sliding off of the bed and grabbing some clothing from her pack, which she had neglected to unpack, before heading to the bathroom. She had to admit that, as situations she'd been in went, being on an inter-dimensional ship with her own bathroom and most of the fiancées who could walk in on her on a different planet was one of the more relaxing ones. Staring into the mirror, she snorted. "Just give up on looking on the bright side, Saotome," she muttered, before starting to get dressed.

HR.

Marle Hewlett scowled as she received the scan data from her storage device, looking over the burn marks that were etched along the ground in front of the arch of a temple of some sort, along with n unconscious dog which had been buried in a several foot long rut in the dirt. Whoever had fought here hadn't been gentle, or bothered with putting up a barrier for that matter. They had attacked the Jewel Seed carrier, and taken it almost faster than the ship nearby could notice the activation. "It's gone," she projected, focusing on the Typhon's bridge. "There was a lot of Midchilden magic cast around here, but I can't find any sign of the caster."

"Another mage on planet?" Captain Hewlett's frown could almost be heard in his tone. "No one else has been registered on this planet, unless it was Scrya, and he would have reported to us."

"Maybe this explains why he hasn't..." Marle responded, recalling the young archeologist that had found the Jewel Seeds in the first place, and volunteered to look for them again even before a ship had been dispatched.

"We shouldn't jump to that conclusion yet," the captain responded. "Also, Ranma is finally up and about. I'll have him waiting for you when you get back."

"Right..." The combat mage said, somewhat dubiously. She'd been rather disgusted when she'd found out that the older boy was asleep at ten in the morning, and wasn't really seeing much use for him in the rest of this operation. Still, he had been assigned to help her, so she supposed she should give him a chance. "I'm returning to the ship." With a nod, she invoked the teleportation spell, and disappeared.

Several minutes passed, before a small, black and red cat padded out of the bushes nearby, sniffing the air before running off.

HR.

"So, the Ferret was telling the truth." A soft, yet irritated voice muttered, as two figures stood on the top floor of a skyscraper in the middle of Uminari city, the shorter of them staring at two glimmering blue jewels that were floating at eye level. "That's made this a whole lot harder."

"What if they've already found some?" A deeper, almost growling voice came from the larger figure.

"We can't exactly assault an exploration ship," The smaller figure snorted. "Even if it would be the manly thing to do."

The larger flinched. "She should accept that..." he trailed off, uncertainly.

"We'll see," The smaller figure said, though they didn't sound very confident. Extending a hand that held a black ornament with a yellow triangle in the middle, the two Jewel Seeds vanished, and the two figures turned to the rooftop entrance.

HR.

"Would you please stop that?" Akane was jolted out of a steady routine of pacing around, looking out the ship's windows, and grumbling as her older sister's voice hit her like a whip crack. Looking over to the desk in the corner of the large room that she and her two older siblings were sharing, she saw Nabiki giving her a very annoyed look.

"They could have at least taken me with them," She grumbled, slumping down in a chair across from the brown haired girl.

"Remember what happened when Ranma fought Happosai?" Nabiki responded.

"But that was Happosai," Akane objected. Even Ranma isn't able to beat him all the time, and he could only do it with that marble Mr. Saotome gave him."

"Exactly," Nabiki said, putting her pen down and sliding the large pile of immigration paperwork that, somehow, it had become her responsibility to file or it would never get done, away from her. "Devices, as they call them, are really powerful. Ranma lucked into getting one, since you have to be Rank B in their power structure for them to even consider giving one to you."

"I don't get it," Akane admitted, confused.

"From what I've been able to tell," Nabiki gestured at several books that were scattered around the edge of the desk, "Those things can allow you to fly, or fire an orbital strike or something." She shrugged. "Apparently, that girl Marle, the one who threw Daddy across the room just by activating her device and is able to talk telepathically with the ship and scan for magic, doesn't even have an intelligent device."

"So... you think these Jewel Seed things need all that power, huh?" Akane now looked kind of nervous. For a moment, she wondered why Ranma was down there fighting them, if they could make things more powerful than Happosai, then she forcibly ejected that thought from her mental train. "Do you think I could get one?"

"Who knows, maybe once we get to Midchilda, if you'll let me finish these forms," The middle Tendo sister glared at the youngest pointedly. Akane grinned sheepishly, before standing, catching herself starting to wander towards the window again, and abruptly forcing herself to turn.

"I'm going to go find Kasumi, all right?" She said, before exiting the room. Nabiki just rolled her eyes and picked up her pen.

"What the hell was our mother's maiden name?" She muttered, before sighing.

HR.

"I can't believe... You're absolutely sure none of those were Jewel Seed carriers?" It had been several hours since Marle had returned from missing the activation earlier in the day, and now she was leaning against a console in the ship's main teleporter room, looking somewhat grey and shaky.

Ranma shook his head. "If you'd told me where we were going, I coulda warned you. Ryugenzawa can be pretty freaky your first time there."

"A giant seven headed dragon just tried to eat us," the STAB agent growled, looking at her new partner incredulously.

"Eight, actually," Ranma responded. At a blank look, he repeated, "Orochi has eight heads."

"What does it..." She stopped herself, and took a deep breath. "All right, STU didn't find any signs of a shard either, it's just... are things like that very common on this planet?"

"They're the only giant animals I've ever seen," Ranma responded. "Other than Mr. Green Turtle, and I think Kodachi just fed him really well."

Marle contemplated responding to that, but abruptly shook her head, straightening up and stepping back from the console before pushing a few buttons, causing a blinking map of Japan and part of China to appear. "We think all of the Jewel seeds landed in this general area, and these are all of the magical signatures we've detected. Can you identify any of them so we don't walk into a situation like that again?"

Ranma concentrated, looking over the display. "First off, ya don't want to go there," he pointed at a massive cluster of dots in the middle of the Chinese mainland that had looked rather promising.

"Why not?" Marle asked, actually rather curious.

"It's Jusendo valley," Ranma responded, a shiver passing down his back. For a second, he caught himself wondering if he could get transported down there to get a cure for himself, but given what had happened at the wedding, one of those Jewel Seed things could show up there and create some sort of monster, requiring fighting at the springs, just to stop him. "The locals aren't very nice, and it's where the old man and I got our curses."

The girl just nodded, and then pointed at another dot, this time in Japan. "What about this one?"

Ranma looked at it, and then twitched. "That's the shrine with the crazy chick and the dog demon," he explained. "Guy tried to cut my head off, for some reason."

Marle sighed. This was probably going to be a long search.

END.


	4. Chapter 3: Who's That Pokemon?

Note: If this chapter makes no sense, it's either because I'm an incoherant idiot or you somehow missed the last update, which totally rewrote the previous chapter. I'm banking heavily on the former, though.

There will be a Spoiler note at the end of the story to answer an MGLN question.

Special thanks to JRA for proof reading, and JSB for helping me break through my writer's block again... at least temporarily.

Hope you Enjoy Chapter 3.

Chapter 3: Who's That Pokemon!

Yuuno awoke to the feeling that all of his limbs had been locked in an uncomfortable position for a week, and he'd tried to cough up his lungs. This was about accurate, though it had only been a few days. After a few seconds of groaning to let the universe know exactly how uncomfortable he was, and exactly how unhappy he was about it, he decided that he'd better figure out where he was. Looking around, he saw the wooden ceiling and walls of a room he'd never been in before. He was laying on a bed in the middle of it, covered in blankets. Throwing several of them off, he rolled out of bed, and walked over to a window to see that there was a large lake, surrounded by trees outside of it.

"What happened?" he muttered, trying to force his memory to work, though his head felt kind of fuzzy. The last thing he'd remembered was shaking hands with the older boy with the umbrella, agreeing to travel together on the search for the Jewel Seeds. His eyes suddenly widened. "The Jewel Seeds!" He had no idea how long he'd been out, but in that time, he hadn't been able to look for the dangerous artifacts. Concentrating, he began to shape a search spell, although his eyes started to blur as he did so. Still, he managed to finish it, sending the ball of white light shooting out of the window and over the lake. He wasn't likely to actually detect one, but he had to at least try.

As the ball of energy disappeared into the tree line, the young archeologist was distracted by Ryoga, suddenly walking around the side of the building and catching sight of him through the window. "Oh, you're awake," the bandanna clad man exclaimed, looking relieved.

The Blond boy nodded. "What happened?"

Shifting nervously, the lost boy reached up to fiddle with his bandanna. "I didn't realize that you weren't used to how cold it gets around here," he explained. "We camped in the forest, but by the time I found you in the morning you were barely breathing, so I brought you here to recover."

"And where's here?" Yuuno asked, some of how he'd felt when he'd woken up starting to make sense.

"Uh, Kobe, I think," Ryoga said, and shrugged as if that wasn't really important.

Yuuno consulted his rather vague recollections of Japanese geography, and grimaced. Kobe was on the other end of the country from the city they'd started out in. "So, how long have I been unconscious?" He asked, wondering precisely how much havoc the Jewel Seeds had caused in that time.

Ryoga thought for a moment. "About a day and a half."

"But how did..." The younger boy started, before shaking his head. "Never mind."

Ryoga nodded. He often got that response when he was talking about directions, and it really didn't bother him anymore. As the young archeologist seemed to have run out of questions, the older boy spoke up again. "Yuuno, I'm sorry about what happened. I just assumed that since you were a mage and I found you in the middle of the woods, you would be able to take care of yourself when camping. I guess I kinda forgot you're still a kid."

"I'm not just a kid," Yuuno shot back. Normally, he wasn't very argumentative, but the statement had gotten under his skin.

"So, how old are you?" Ryoga asked, wondering if the boy had found a youth spring, like that annoying Lukosai character that had terrorized Nerima a couple of months back.

The mage came back with "I'm nine," before noticing that the lost boy was giving him a very dubious look. "Compared to Earth, Mid-Childen education works very fast," he explained, some annoyance creeping into his voice. "Besides which, you need to figure things out quickly in order to learn the equations needed to cast magic."

Ryoga looked unconvinced. "Well, I guess," he said, thinking. "But still, after you've fully recovered, I'm taking you back to the nearest city."

Yuuno grimaced, but decided not to argue. He'd thought that having a traveling companion would make his job easier, but even without one, he could get back to finding the Jewel Seeds after Ryoga left. "Fine," he finally said, before suddenly stiffening. The probe he'd sent out several minutes before had just returned a signal. Though it was somewhat hard to make out, he definitely recognized the readings he was getting back as a dormant Jewel Seed.

"Um, Yuuno?" Ryoga asked, as the younger boy stood at the window, his eyes somewhat glazed over. For a moment, the martial artist wondered if he'd been too hard on the other, and he was sulking about it. This question was quickly put to rest as the boy jumped out of the window and started to fly into the air.

"Hey, where are you going?" Ryoga demanded, starting to run along on the ground under the younger boy. Yuuno didn't answer, simply making a bee line for the edge of the forest.

HR.

"Well, this is new," Ranma grumbled, as he stared across an unfamiliar city from the rooftop that he and Marle stood on, surveying the form of a tree larger than the buildings around it.

Marle nodded. "STU says there are two humans stuck in the middle of the thing, along with the jewel seed…there." Ranma followed her finger to the point where the massive trunk began to branch out, the branches twining around each other a few times before expanding into a canopy. Ranma didn't say anything, though his staff abruptly switched to close combat mode before he leapt off of the roof, bouncing down to the next in line. "Hey!" Marle yelled, before sighing and holding her Storage Device up in ready position.

Her caution was soon rewarded, as when Ranma got close enough to the Jewel seed holder, a branch came loose from the canopy, swinging in a massive arc directly for his head. Marle immediately let loose a bolt of magical energy, intersecting the thing half way down its length, and it recoiled as if burned. Ranma didn't seem to notice, as he leapt from the low roof of the building just in front of the monstrous plant, his jump landing him on one of the larger branches. The STAB agent continued to watch, her weapon at the ready, as he bolted forward, dodging a rapid series of suddenly growing vines, and rolling out of sight.

Frowning, she immediately invoked a flight spell, shooting off of the roof and towards the creature. She knew she should have stopped the idiot martial artist, but he was blindingly fast, to the point where she was unsure if she could keep up with him at her full speed. She'd almost reached the tree, when a golden light suddenly burst from the tangle of plant matter that Ranma was trapped behind, and it melted away to reveal the martial artist, carefully cutting away massive hunks of the jewel seed creature.

The reason for Ranma's caution quickly became evident, as two children, about ten years old, were revealed laying in a cavity within the center of the tree, the girl holding the Jewel Seed within clasped hands. Marle acted instantly, bringing her storage device up, and barking "STU, Capture Mode." The Bow let loose a bolt of white energy, which seemed to split and grow as it flew through the air, creating a cocoon around the Jewel Seed and pulling it towards its creator.

Marle immediately reached up and drew the blue gem into her bow, before the words "Jewel Seed, Serial X Captured" flashed across the gem imbedded in the device, and the giant plant melted away.

"At least we don't have to clean this up," Ranma muttered, gently lowering the children to the ground as the chamber they had been laying in dissolved.

The younger girl frowned. "I could have had to clean you up if you weren't more careful," she grumbled, returning her device to storage mode.

Ranma snorted, doing the same. "Compared to Happosai, this thing was a joke." He dismissed her concern, as they teleported back to the ship.

HR.

Ryoga broke out of the forest, skidding to a halt barely six inches from the bank of a river and panting for breath. He had to admit that Yuuno could definitely fly fast, though on the bright side, the person hovering through the air was definitely an easy landmark to follow. The boy had only dropped out of sight a few seconds earlier, and was easily spotted, as he was now standing on the opposite bank, studying a large tree intently.

Curious to know what in the world was going on, the lost boy carefully judged the distance and leapt, landing next to the mage. Yuuno didn't seem to notice, as he stretched out both hands, muttering incomprehensibly to himself and staring fixedly at a small blue gem that was slowly floating away from the tree and towards the river.

Curious, Ryoga reached out a hand, but was stopped by a hurriedly snapped warning from the boy. "Don't touch it! Unsealed Jewel Seeds will activate if anything with a will or desire comes into contact with them." The lost boy jerked his hand back, watching as the tiny object continued on its way.

"So... what are you doing?" He asked, confused.

"I'm trying to seal it," Yuuno explained, ceasing his muttering but continuing with the hand gestures. Ryoga noticed, as he studied them more closely, that the boy's hands were surrounded by a glowing runic pattern, hovering in mid-air. "I'm trying to keep it away from anything that could activate it, then I can start the spell to make it safe."

"Oh," Ryoga nodded suddenly feeling a bit out of his depth. Stepping back, he observed the proceedings silently until the crystal was floating out in the middle of the river, a glowing series of runes beginning to surround it while Yuuno showed evident strain. Both mage and martial artist were caught off guard, and Yuuno's concentration completely broken, when a large form suddenly leapt out of the still waters, arcing up and catching the Jewel Seed in its mouth before splashing back in again.

The forest went dead silent, and Yuuno stared at the slowly rippling water for several moments in a state of shock, before presence of mind returned to him, and he leapt backwards next to Ryoga, slamming one hand down onto the ground and beginning to form more runes.

Ryoga was about to ask what was going on when the water began to glow with an intense white light, a geyser shooting from the middle of it and splashing down on an invisible half-dome that surrounded the two before revealing a huge blue serpentine creature.

"The... The Jewel Seed did that?" Ryoga asked, astonished.

Yuuno nodded, as the creature roared, striking forward, and smashing headlong into the same dome that had deflected the water. It rippled violently for several seconds, but then solidified, sending the attacker falling backwards. The creature didn't look nearly as tough as the Orochi, but that was the only positive thing Ryoga could think about it. It was still an angry dragon, and more importantly, it was thrashing around in the middle of a river, quite possibly the worst place for him to be fighting short of the observation deck of the Churaumi Aquarium.

"Any idea on how to get rid of it?" He asked, hopefully, as the creature made another lunge at the barrier.

"The sealing technique will still work," Yuuno responded, trying to think. "But unfortunately, it's too complicated to perform while keeping up a barrier strong enough to deflect it."

The lost boy thought for a moment, then nodded, withdrawing his umbrella from the straps that kept it secured on top of his backpack and then opened it in one fluid motion. "Okay, then I can keep it busy for a while."

Yuuno looked at the older boy as if he'd gone insane. "You... what?" He asked, deadpan.

"Just trust me," Ryoga responded, as the ground shuddered with another attack. "Or would you rather be trapped inside of this shield for the rest of your life?"

Yuuno reluctantly nodded. He didn't know much about Ryoga's strength, but the martial artist had managed to keep up with him, on foot, while he flew through the forest, and he looked tough enough that at least the first blow likely wouldn't kill him. Plus, the blond honestly had no other ideas. Lowering the shield, he was surprised as Ryoga leapt out of it, and slammed into the water dragon with his umbrella. He was even more surprised when the anti-rain device didn't snap like a twig, but actually knocked the giant serpent backwards into the water, Ryoga leaping off and landing on the bank just in time to raise the umbrella to stop the wave of water that had been kicked up. The mage didn't let his surprise get in the way of the quickly forming magical pattern as he began to evoke the Jewel Seed sealing spell again, trying to ignore the sound of the creature roaring and lunging at the lost boy.

Ryoga nimbly leapt out of its way, removing several of his bandannas and peppering the side of his opponent with them, though he felt rather disconcerted as the cuts they opened up dripped water rather than blood. Leaping again and watching the thing slam its head into a tree, he had to wonder if this was what it felt like when Ranma fought him. His opponent was incredibly easy to dodge, but if he made one mistake, he'd probably end up as a porcine snack. Shaking that thought off, he leapt into the air, landing on the creature's back and removed his belt, channeling chi into it to form a blade and slashing deep into its neck. The monster stopped dead, slumping back into the water for a few seconds. Ryoga wondered if he'd won before his question was answered by a tail slamming into his back, sending him on a fast, low trajectory that intersected several trees.

It took him a few seconds to clear his head, mostly because it had been buried in the side of one of the trees when he came to a stop, and once he did he sort of wished he hadn't. The water dragon was hot on his heels, its eyes blazing with anger and its mouth open wider than any animal he'd ever seen. He brought his umbrella up to try and block, but doubted it would be enough without being able to brace against the attack. That was about when the creature suddenly stopped again, looming over him as though it were deliberating over whether it should eat him or not. About a half a second later, a blue energy crystal shot out of its head, hovering in mid-air, and it started to disintegrate into water and one very confused carp.

"Yes, I got it!" Yuuno yelled jubilantly, reaching out one hand to grasp the Jewel Seed and carefully placing it into a pouch he wore at his side. "Thanks for keeping it occupied, Ryoga." He stopped, then, looking around in confusion. "Ryoga?:" He asked, after several seconds where he couldn't find the martial artist anywhere.

"Bwee." came the rather irritated sound of a small, black piglet as it squirmed its way out from under its backpack. Of course, he'd managed to avoid getting splashed for the entire fight, so it was only natural that it would happen right after.

"Oh, right..." Yuuno said, looking down at the pig. "Let's get you some hot water."

HR.

The crew who manned the bridge of the Typhon were a pretty composed group. They had kept their calm in situations ranging from miscalculated dimensional jumps to out and out combat. That's why it was rather odd that, at the moment, all of them were feeling a little disturbed, as a rather excitable brown haired woman looked over their shoulders, her face radiating raw curiosity.

She was currently looking intently at a navigation console, causing the woman sitting there to throw a questioning glance back at the ship's first officer, who currently sat in the command position. He just shrugged his shoulders, and stifled a grin. The girl wasn't doing any harm, and he found some of the flustered reactions she was inducing kind of amusing.

"How about we put up an image of the planet?" he ordered, and Kasumi looked over to him for a moment, before looking back and letting her mouth gape open. Whenever she'd looked out the windows before, she'd seen the crackling energy of the between-space that the ship resided in, and this was the first time she'd actually seen Earth like this. She found herself stepping to the front of the bridge, raising a hand to press it against the image, only to find her fingers going through the holographic display. "Oh, my." She muttered.

When she, her family and the Saotomes had first arrived, she'd been somewhat unsure that it had been a good idea, though she'd assuaged that worry with the thought that her father would need her. Since then, she'd found out that good food was a lot easier to get here, and without Ranma's constant fights, their living quarters didn't get trashed nearly as badly as it did at home. She'd started to get worried again, to wonder why she had come, until she had begun to explore the ship.

"This is amazing," she muttered, quietly, following the island chain that was Japan with her vision. Not knowing why she did it, she suddenly raised one hand, and waved at it.

HR.

"You wanted to see me, sir?" Marle stood in the captain's office, speaking just after the door had finished closing.

Captain Hewlett nodded. On his desk, an image of the Jewel Seed that had just been collected was displayed. "I wanted to ask you, personally, what's your opinion of Ranma Saotome?"

The younger officer's eyebrow rose. "He's very adaptable in a combat situation, and very good in hand-to-hand combat. His ranged skill could use work, he's a bit too impulsive, and he has some rather large skill gaps in other areas," she said, pretty much parroting the notes she was planning to submit if Ranma were ever to actually become a STAB combat mage. She was stopped before she continued with the assessment, when the older man raised a hand.

"That's not what I meant," he said, and ran a hand through his hair. Tapping a button, he brought up a file with Ranma's father's face on it, along with a list of statistics. "I'm concerned due to some things I've learned since I've done some research on his family," he explained. "I know family history isn't a great indicator of someone's personality, but apparently even before he vanished from the Bureau's records, Genma had racked up several bar tabs, and been caught on petty theft charges several times."

The dark haired girl raised an eyebrow. "Do I want to know how he got into the Bureau?"

"He was either a far better liar than he is now or the recruiting officer was an idiot," Her father responded, frankly, and then tapped a button. "What really concerns me is that his mother, after she returned to Mid-Childa, was seen with some... rather suspicious people, and has apparently recently just dropped right off of the map."

"I don't think Ranma would do that, if that's what you mean," the combat mage responded. "From what I've gathered, the Tendos are as much part of his family as his father, and his ability to lie is... actually kind of cute."

"Wait, you don't..." The captain started, surprised, only to get a glare that suddenly reminded him of his wife, back home. "All right, question withdrawn." he said, hastily, thankful that his door was closed and none of the rest of the crew could see him. "Just keep an eye on him, understood?"

"Yes, sir." Marle responded, before she was given the nod to leave.

HR.

"This is pretty good," Yuuno said, as he and Ryoga sat on rocks around a fire, the prepared meat of a fish hanging over the flames between them.

"Thanks," Ryoga replied, taking a bite of his own dinner. The fire had originally been built to get enough hot water to change him back, as Yuuno didn't really know enough about his gas powered camp stove not to blow them both up, but since the fish had just been sitting there, he'd decided that they may as well eat it. "So," He finally said, after a few minutes of silence. "That... thing... is what those Jewel Seeds you're searching for creates?"

The mage nodded. "The final form and abilities are very hard to predict, though."

"But... isn't that kind of dangerous for one guy to go after?" The lost boy continued, deciding that mentioning the younger boy's age again would be a bad idea.

"There's supposed to be backup on the way from the Administration Bureau," the archeologist explained," But I don't know when they're going to show up, and I don't want to risk calling generally because there's someone else looking for them." he rubbed at his side, remembering where the strange person who had stolen his intelligent device had thrown him. "They're not very friendly."

Ryoga nodded, looking troubled. "So, I guess you're not going to give up on finding them, huh?"

"I discovered them. If it weren't for me, they wouldn't even be here." Yuuno said, looking serious. "If they hurt anybody, it'll be my fault."

"Yeah, I kind of thought you'd say that," Ryoga muttered. "Okay, then I'll still go with you, and help you out with fighting them. ...but we're going to have to get you some cold weather gear, and maybe some martial arts training."

"I don't really have much currency that would be good here," Yuuno objected, only to be waved off by his traveling companion.

"I've got some stored away.. I just have to remember where," Ryoga said, looking somewhat sheepish.

HR.

"Mistress?" A dark haired woman looked up from the work she was doing to see a figure standing in the shadows at the corner of the room. "I have news. The target was sighted earlier today in a place called Uminari City."

"Konatsu, will you stop talking like that and come out into the light?" Ukyo grumbled, irritably, folding one of her outfits and placing it into the suitcase she was packing.

The shadowed figure stepped forward, resolving into a rather miffed looking male Kunoichi. "You don't have any sense of drama, do you Ukyo-sama?"

The brown haired woman rubbed her forehead. Over the past few months, Konatsu had started to gain a bit more of a personality other than 'doormat,' and while she found that to be a good thing, he could be somewhat annoying at times. "Uminari City? Why would Ran-chan go there?"

The ninja shrugged. "Apparently, a large, supernaturally powered tree grew in the middle of the city, and Ranma arrived to destroy it and freed two people who were trapped inside."

"So, he's playing superhero? The Okonomiyaki chef shook her head. Things hadn't really made sense to her ever since Ranma and the Tendos had just up and vanished a few days before, followed by the Amazons. It had taken her this long to arrange things so that she wouldn't lose everything she had, but now she was prepared to go hunting for her fiance. Looking over to Konatsu, she noticed that he was fidgeting nervously. "Is there something else?"

"Um, yes..." The effeminate boy said, somewhat reluctant. "There was a girl with Ranma when he fought the giant plant." Seeing Ukyos face darken, he continued hurriedly, "She seemed pretty young to be one of the fiancées."

The spatula wielding martial artist only seemed slightly mollified by this. "Thanks, Konatsu." She said before slamming the suitcase shut. "I don't know how you got this information, but you're a life saver."

The Ninja nodded, deciding that what his mistress didn't know wouldn't hurt her.

END.

Well, that was the latest chapter. Hope everyone enjoyed it.

Spoiler note.

It's Gyarados!

But in all seriousness, some people asked me if Nanoha, and other characters, will be showing up later. The answer is Maybe, and Yes. In the "Maybe" colum are characters like, for example, Precia, who has an alternate continuity counterpart who isn't really the same character. However, it should be noted that the second arc of this fic, the one that has to do with As, includes most of the original Nanoha cast. At least, those that appear in As. I'm not sure how long it'll take to get to the As arc, though, so I'm not sure about the advisability of reading this specifically for, say, when Nanoha shows up.


	5. Chapter 4: Contact

Okay, another chapter, and this one's got some meat on its bones. Hasn't been fully checked by all the people I want to check it, but it was just sitting on my hard drive, and I can't abide chapters doing that. I hope it was all right, anyhow.

Chapter 4: Contact.

"You've got to be kidding me..." Ranma muttered, doing his best not to look at the horrific abomination before him without making it obvious. This was rather successful, as the inter-dimensional magic enforcer next to him was looking at the same monster with big, sparkling eyes.

"Aw, it's so cute," She said, watching the extremely large grey kitten rolling around in what appeared to be a forested park in the middle of the city as if it didn't have a care in the world. Turning to the side, she saw that her partner of a bit under a week was conspicuously not looking at her or the animal. "What? It is!" She quickly justified, before clearing her throat. "But we should capture the Jewel Seed as soon as possible."

Ranma reluctantly nodded, his mind going through several excuses per second in an attempt to avoid the... thing... before him. "Then you do it," he said, in his most dismissive tone. "If I hurt it, I'll never hear the end of it."

"Of course, by the looks of it you don't need to hurt it," the STAB agent said, before flying forward, off of the ledge the two were standing on and approaching the exceptionally large animal, which was apparently trying to scratch an itch on its side using a tree. "Here kitty, kitty, kitty!" She called, making a clicking noise with her tongue.

The animal heard her, turning its head and lumbering forward until the two were face to face, and the bureau agent could reach out a hand and pat it on the nose. She was just pulling her hand back, when a bolt of electrical energy slammed into the animal's side, and it pitched over, yowling in agony.

:What the..." The dark haired girl spun in mid-air, bringing her device up to a defensive position as she surveyed the area for whatever had fired the magical bolt. She quickly found it in the form of another mage, this one several years younger than herself, who was hovering about fifty meters away, holding a large polearm. "Who are you?" She asked, ensuring that the displacement barrier she'd put up earlier was still intact and wondering why Ranma hadn't warned her of the newcomer's approach.

"That isn't important," the other mage replied. "Stand aside, I will take care of this creature."

"Well, it's good that you want to help, but this is a Space-Time Administration Bureau operation, we're recovering a very dangerous magical artifact, and..." That was about as far as the bow wielding combat mage got, before her opponent was blurring forward, weapon raised and lightning crackling along the edge of its blade.

HR.

Ranma flinched at the sound of the pained yowl. Why did the damned thing have to be a fifteen meter tall cat? Still, on an intellectual level, he knew that a kitten, even one that large wasn't likely to really put up a fight, and the sound disturbed him for more reasons than just the obvious. Forcing himself to look at the battle scene, he saw that the animal was off to the side, laying on a mat of crushed trees and looking as though it had been knocked unconscious.

Meanwhile, someone had arrived and was floating across from Marle. For a moment, the two exchanged words that the martial artist couldn't hear, before the newcomer shot forward. Ranma immediately responded by kicking off of the ledge he'd been watching from, hitting the ground running. He was about half way across the little grove of trees, and wondering why the heck the thing existed in the middle of the city, when something in the back of his mind clicked, and he rolled to the side. This was a rather smart decision, as a large, orange and black blur shot past him, before turning as though pivoting on one foot and coming back after him.

He leapt over the thing's head, hitting it in the back with a light kick as he went and turning to land in a defensive stance. "Lime?" He asked, as he got his first good look at his attacker.

The large man in a black T-shirt and jeans looked at the martial artist strangely, long enough for Ranma to figure out that he probably wasn't Lime. For one, the Musk warrior hadn't really worn anything that normal and for another, this guy was taller, yet a little less muscled. "Sorry, but my mistress is playing with your friend right now. You're either going to have to sit this out or deal with me first."

"Well, I'm not gunna sit it out," Ranma responded, raising Darkfire to a ready position.

"I didn't think you would," the other said, his ears, which Ranma only now realized looked far more animalistic than any he'd ever seen on a human, twitching before he bolted forward. His speed was pretty impressive for a normal person, but the pigtailed martial artist was easily able to dodge his blow and bring Darkfire's end around and into the small of his back. Unfortunately, the animalistic man didn't even flinch, and Ranma realized that a barrier jacket must have caught the blow.

"You're pretty tough," he remarked, using the backlash from his last blow to get some distance.

His opponent didn't respond, just pushing forward and charging again.

HR.

"Why does everyone like close combat so much around here?" Marle grumbled to herself, as she backpedaled, firing a volley of magical bolts that forced her opponent to veer off course. True, for the most part all she'd seen was Ranma, but he hadn't even figured out the spell that allowed him to fly yet, and he was still a frighteningly competent fighter, mostly due to his skill in direct combat. From what he'd told her, so were most of the people he knew, and now a new mage had appeared from nowhere with an electrified sword on a stick and was determined to take her head off with it.

Diving down into the tree-line, the Combat Mage gained some distance by weaving between the trees, though she winced when she felt something large pass by her with an obvious displacement of air, abruptly pulling up and bursting from the canopy... only to be slammed in the face by a blast of lightning. Her barrier jacket crackled and sparked for a second or so, before it managed to dissipate the remainder of the power, and she returned fire with her own energy bolts. Still, the attack had shaken her, and she wondered if she could take another hit like that.

Deciding after a second or so that the answer was no, she put on as much speed as she could manage, pointing STU behind her and leaving targeting up to the device as she gained distance. This actually worked, and when she turned around, her opponent was standing with the remnants of a barrier fading from around them, and an area of the forest nearby looked like someone had taken an axe to it.

"Give up and let me retrieve what I came here for," Marle's auburn haired opponent demanded, as the blade on the end of the pole they carried split down the middle, the arcs of power that had previously surrounded it beginning to jump across like a Jacob's Ladder. She just shook her head, preparing for the attack and trying to figure out how to defeat her opponent. This proved to be a mistake, as the other mage's attack charged quickly, and her device announced "Plasma Lance."

The blast that was released was searingly bright, leaving an after-image in the air as it passed, and though Marle managed to catch it on the thickest shield she could produce, the barrier cracked within seconds, throwing the STAB mage backwards and into a spiral towards the ground.

HR.

Bracing to catapult off of a tree in order to arrest his headlong flight through the forest, Ranma both cursed and thanked Barrier Jackets. He'd tried to batter through his opponent's guard using the Amiguriken, and the shield had apparently been able to hold up against the hundreds of blows with only a small amount of visible energy loss. On the other hand, when the tiger man had retaliated with an attack on par with Ryoga's usual, and Ranma had been a little too slow to dodge, his own barrier had shrugged it off easily enough and allowed him to recover with little injury.

Frowning down at his intelligent device, Ranma considered switching it into close combat mode, but was unsure. He'd been told that Mid-Childen magic was specifically designed not to kill, but he wasn't sure that would matter to a life energy fueled scythe blade. As a bluish blur flew past him, followed by a reddish one, both easily identifiable as Marle and the other enemy mage, he decided that he had no choice.

Reading his mind, Darkfire announced "Close Combat Mode, set up," and reshaped into its energy blade form as he charged back into the small clearing where he'd been fighting the larger man.

"I was wondering if that was all you had," his enemy smirked, before manifesting a set of energy claws that reminded him a bit too much of descriptions he'd heard of the Neko-ken state.

Ranma didn't respond, bringing his weapon around and trying for a quick gash along the chest. It was blocked by his opponent's claws, in a bright flash of contesting power, before the two were pushed apart.

"Gah!" Ranma yelped, as his movement carried him directly into the path of a falling body. He hit the ground with a rather jarring impact, Marle laying on top of him, and looking like she'd been hit by a truck.

"Well, that was unexpected," The pigtailed martial artist's opponent noted dryly. He didn't move to capitalize on the opening, merely watching as Ranma sat up, quickly checking the girl for signs of life.

"She's still alive." The voice came from above them and both looked up to see an auburn haired figure floating there, weapon resting casually across one shoulder. "I've sealed the Jewel Seed, we're going."

"Right." the Tiger man responded, leaping into the air himself. Ranma considered trying to follow them, but unfortunately, there was a wounded person laying on his lap and he didn't exactly feel comfortable with leaving her alone. Concentrating on his intelligent device, he sent a recovery signal to the ship.

HR.

An hour later, Marle was still rubbing at her side, where she'd been pretty badly bruised, while Ranma stood next to her, not having said much in the time since they had been retrieved. Behind the two, the girl's father watched a recording of their latest Jewel Seed capture mission, this one coming from Darkfire's internal storage.

Watching it, the girl sort of understood her partner's uncomfortable silence, as though he had not been hit nearly as badly as she had by his opponent, he had done much less offensively, as well.

"It appears these people didn't identify themselves," Captain Hewlette observed, pausing the playback on a shot of Ranma using his speed augmentation technique to strike the man with animal features. "Marle, opinions?"

"The boy who fought me was definitely using a Mid-Childen device," the girl responded, immediately.

"That was a girl, actually," Ranma interjected. "Musk boy called her mistress. As for him, he wasn't usin' a device at all, but he definitely had magic, since he wasn't using Chi to pull off his tricks. Fighting style seemed way different from Marle, too, but somethin' felt familiar about it..."

The older man raised an eyebrow, waiting for the martial artist to continue, but Ranma only shook his head. He reluctantly nodded at that, and continued, "All right. Now that we have confirmation that these two are here, I'd like you two on a higher state of alert. We apparently now have someone racing us for Jewel Seeds, and we don't know what they want to do with them."

"Yes, Sir." the STAB mage said, nodding, before the captain gestured and the two turned, leaving his office.

As the door closed behind them, Marle turned to Ranma, giving him an odd look. "That was the first thing you said in the last hour," she observed, not being used to the pigtailed boy's subdued attitude.

"Can I get your device's recording of that last fight?" He asked, suddenly.

She shrugged, producing STU from the pocket she kept it in and holding it up for a moment. "Just transferred it to Darkfire." she announced, and then blinked as he turned and walked off. Several seconds passed, before she muttered "Jerk."

HR.

"You're insane." The statement was flat, as many of Nabiki's were, though this time it seemed much more so than usual as she looked over the top of her book at Kasumi.

"Oh, well that wasn't very nice," her elder sister said, her expression somewhat hurt.

Normally, this would make the middle Tendo daughter regret what she'd said, but this time it just strengthened her opinion. "Akane, I could see, but you're nowhere near cut out for this sort of thing!"

"Well, I'm a good organizer," Kasumi offered.

"Akane, help me out here, would you?" Nabiki asked, looking over at her younger sister, who was laying on a couch, lifting her barbells.

The blue-black haired girl just shrugged as best she was able from her current position. "If it's what she wants to do, I guess..." she responded, huffing as she lifted again.

Nabiki huffed along with her, in exasperation, and was about to respond when their door chimed, and Kasumi moved to open it. The middle Tendo sighed in relief, hoping the distraction would knock her sister off of her current train of thought, until the door opened to reveal the STAB agent who had brought them up to the Typhon in the first place.

"Hello, Hewlette-san," The eldest sister said, smiling cheerfully and bowing before stepping back into the room.

"Um, Hi Tendo-san," the girl said, bowing back, though it looked rather clumsy. She was about to continue, when the brown haired girl interrupted, not seeming to notice.

"Do you think I would be a good ship crew member?"

Marle blinked, staring at the polite girl for several moments. "Um, sure?" She asked, uncertainly. Seeing Nabiki's wince in the background, she hurriedly continued, "You'd probably have to go through several years of training on top of the usual in order to gain enough understanding of magic, but eventually, I guess."

Kasumi smiled widely, before she seemed to realize what she'd done and blushed slightly. "I'm sorry for interrupting you, Hewlette-san, would you like to come in and have some tea?"

"Actually, I'm just here to ask you a couple of questions," Marle responded. "I've got to get some stuff done after this."

"Is this more stuff about our registration on Mid-Childa?" Nabiki asked, dreading the answer.

The combat mage shook her head. "No, it's actually about Ranma." Immediately, Akane's head rose from the couch, while Kasumi's expression turned somewhat worried.

"The idiot hasn't done something stupid, has he?" The youngest Tendo asked.

Marle shook her head. "No, it's just that our last Jewel Seed retrieval didn't go very well." Seeing Kasumi's worried look deepen, she quickly continued. "We're both fine, it's just that some other mages were there as well, and over-powered us before taking the seed."

"And Saotome's gone all quiet and sulky, right?" Nabiki asked, rolling her eyes.

"Erm, I wouldn't describe it quite like that, but yes." Marle replied. "I tried to ask his father if he knew what was wrong but when I mentioned that we'd been defeated, he went off ranting about the pride of a martial artist."

"That sounds about right," Akane muttered. "Don't worry about it. He'll get over it when he wins against this guy."

"Or does something really stupid," the middle sister cut in

"So this is normal?" The blue haired girl finally asked, noting that all three of the Tendos actually seemed somewhat relieved. At a set of nods, she considered. The comment about her new partner doing something stupid worried her, but she was glad that his sudden silence probably didn't mean anything but hurt pride. "I'll get back to my duties, then." She said, and turned, bowing to Kasumi again before leaving.

The room sank into silence for a few minutes afterward, before there was a loud thud, Akane having dropped her barbells. Nabiki snickered, while Kasumi raised a hand to cover her mouth as the youngest Tendo left the room, conspicuously not looking at either of them.

HR.

Ryoga charged through the thick foliage, trampling bamboo under foot as he frantically looked for landmarks. He'd heard a scream earlier, one of panic, coming from the direction of his and Yuuno's campsite. Unfortunately, he'd run off after it without thinking, ended up getting turned around and it'd been about ten minutes since then.

Catching sight of the large clump of bandannas the younger boy had tied to a tall tree at the edge of the site, the pig-cursed martial artist sighed in relief, keeping his eyes locked on them and moving straight forward. His charge was stopped several seconds later when he felt an intense burning in his legs, and heard the sound of clanking metal and sloshing water.

Immediately leaping up and retrieving his umbrella to guard against the obviously incoming liquid, he landed several feet back in a defensive stance and looked around.

What he saw caused him to blink, lowering the umbrella in confusion. In front of him was Yuuno, laying on his back with a kettle on the ground next to him. His clothes were soaked, and he had a dazed look on his face. The archeologist had apparently been tending a camp fire, which Ryoga had trampled out, barreling directly through the center of camp in order to get to the marked tree.

"Erm, woops," the Hibiki boy muttered, tugging on one of the bandannas around his forehead. "You all right, Yuuno?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," the Mid-childen replied, sitting up and rubbing at the bump on the back of his head from where he'd smacked it against the ground.

"That's good," Ryoga said, crouching down to help the other rebuild the fire. "Did you hear a scream a few minutes ago?"

"No, I didn't hear anything!" The blond haired boy said, rapidly shaking his head.

"Must have just been an animal or something," the darker haired one muttered, dismissing it from his mind. "Did your search come up with any Jewel Seeds around here?"

"None, just a bunch of pre-existing magic." Yuuno's face brightened a little. "I had no idea that this planet had so many examples of ancient magic, especially since its normally off-limits due to lack of magical knowledge in the local population."

"Mmhmm," Ryoga replied, his own enthusiasm somewhat dulled due to the sheer stupidity of some of the magic he'd encountered, along with his curse. "So we'll move out of here some time tomorrow?"

"Sounds good to me, but where are we heading next?" The Archeologist asked, curiously.

"Probably back to Tokyo," Ryoga replied, adding a muttered 'if I can find it' under his breath.

Yuuno nodded, either ignoring or having not heard the older boy's muttered words, and got up to refill the kettle for their evening meal.

HR.

"There." Ranma mumbled, as he sat in the middle of the Typhon's training room, his eyes closed, and images from the last battle running through his mind. He'd noticed something the last time he'd watched them, but before he'd been able to figure it out, his idiotic old man had burst into the room, yelling about how he was a weak little girl and demanding a fight.

To tell the truth, he was pretty sure the old Panda was just bored, but had obliged him, and had a pretty good match before Genma tried that stupid cradle from hell trick on him and he'd done his level best to shove his head through the floor.

Pulling his thoughts away from that pleasant memory, he observed the scene before him, trying to figure out what about it had interested him. Marle's opponent was preparing some form of energy beam, while the STAB mage was bringing her arms up, preparing to try and deflect it. Of course, that would be useless, as the attack was clearly far too powerful, sending her flipping away, into the trees, and eventually slamming into him. It was almost like-

"Yep, you definitely lost." Ranma snapped his eyes open as he saw Akane standing in the doorway, looking at him irritably.

"What's up, Tomboy?" The pigtailed martial artist responded, rolling and springing up from where he'd been standing on his head in the middle of the room.

"That Marle girl came by our room asking about you and saying you were sulking," the girl explained, rather surprised at his attitude, expecting depressed muttering the likes of that he'd indulged in whenever Ryoga got the upper hand in their rivalry.

"I'm surprised ya didn't come burstin' in here with your Shinai, given a girl was worried about me and all." Ranma responded, and then winced a moment later as he realized that he probably shouldn't be reminding the volatile girl of that sort of thing.

Akane surprised him by snorting. "Ranma, she's fourteen." she responded simply, before her eyes narrowed. "You aren't thinking of..."

"NO!" The boy snapped vehemently, before the rest of her previous statement penetrated. "And I don't sulk."

The youngest Tendo rolled her eyes at that, but decided to let it drop. "Okay, so if you weren't upset, why were you so quiet?"

"I was thinkin' over what I saw," Ranma explained, "The entire way these guys fight is different from anything I've seen before. I thought Happosai was able to pull that big blast at the school off 'cuz he's the old freak, but it turns out that magic can just do that."

"So this is all about a new technique?" Akane sounded annoyed, now. She'd been worried about the jerk and he was just being his usual self.

"Not just a new technique," Ranma interrupted. "A whole new branch of the art! New tactics, new techniques, entire new styles..."

"Okay, now I'm worried again..." The blue-black haired girl muttered as she saw her fiancee's expression glaze over. Sure, she was a martial artist, and proud of it, but the delight Ranma found in mastering the art was somewhat creepy, at times. "So you're going to join these guys and learn the art from them?"

The pigtailed martial artist opened his mouth, and then shut it. "I'm not sure," he confessed. "I know I've got to help find the rest of the Jewel Seeds with 'em, but once I've convinced the captain that I can be trusted with Darkfire, I think I've gotta go back home and talk ta Ucchan and the Amazons. I don't really want Ucchan searchin' half the planet for me when I'm somewhere else, at least."

The youngest Tendo nodded, and the two were silent for several moments, Ranma settling to the ground with his legs crossed before she spoke again. "Isn't there something else you need to worry about?"

For some reason, a foreboding feeling swept the pigtailed martial artist, as though the answer to his next question was very important. "Well," he started, considering. "I never really cared about school to begin with, and Kodachi's crazy. I'm pretty sure Ryoga'd be able to find me no matter where I moved to."

"I meant us!" Akane burst out, before she clamped a hand over her mouth and started glaring holes in Ranma's red chinese shirt.

"Oh..." he said, articulately. He knew she hadn't meant the parents' constant yelling about joining the schools, since that had come to an abrupt halt shortly before they boarded the STAB ship. That, of course, meant that she was talking about the question he'd been trying to avoid like the plague since the failed wedding, and it was a pretty big deal now, since without the parents pushing them, it'd be their choice one way or another. "Um..."

There was another silence, this one much more awkward, before Akane stopped glaring and turned on her heel, leaving the room angrily. "Well, crap." Ranma muttered, before deciding that going after her would likely only earn him a punch in the jaw, and continuing his meditation.

HR.

On a rooftop overlooking a deserted intersection, the tall, tiger-featured man looked concernedly at the younger mage, who held a device in the air, preparing to use it. "Are you sure about this, Mistress?"

"We haven't been able to find a Jewel Seed in a week, Mow." the mage responded shortly. "I don't want to keep mother waiting any longer, do you?"

The tiger man, now identified as Mow, winced. "No, but… you've already expended a lot of energy on your search spells, and if the STAB shows up again..."

"What would you suggest?" The young mage interrupted. "We either use a magical burst to awaken the Jewel Seed, or we search for it by hand. This is as close as my detection spells will get us."

"Let me do it," the tiger man said, stepping closer to the edge of the roof.

The mage considered for a moment, and then nodded. "Thank you." Almost immediately after those words were spoken, a beam of white light exploded from the tiger-man's body, piercing the night sky. Nearby, a jewel seed began to resonate, slowly awakening, and the mage raised her intelligent device, switching it to capture mode... just as a second, much smaller column of light appeared on the opposite rooftop, two combat mages stepping out of it.

HR.

"What the heck is that?" Ranma muttered, as he shielded his eyes, looking up at the column of light on the roof across from his.

"They're trying to release enough ambient magic to force the Jewel Seed to awaken," Marle responded, her voice clipped. "We've got to find it before it goes wild and starts destroying the city or hurting people."

"Got it. I'll go look for the Jewel Seed, you stop..." Ranma gestured at the light again. "Whatever that is."

Marle looked at him strangely. "Any reason?" She asked, curiously.

"'Cuz I'm guessing the kid with the sword's gunna come after the one who goes for the seed, an' I'm really good at dodging people with more power than brains."

The female mage considered arguing, recalling the Tendos' warnings about Ranma doing something stupid, but unfortunately they really didn't have time for that, so she kicked off towards the other rooftop as Ranma leapt down into the street.

He considered trying to sense the Seed's power through his Chi, but suddenly realized he didn't have to as he saw the enemy mage bolt off after it. Altering his trajectory slightly, he bounced off of a wall, changing direction to pursue her.

It took several seconds for him to catch up, but when he rounded a corner to see her preparing to capture a wildly glowing Jewel Seed, he pointed Darkfire forward and channeled chi to the tip of the staff. "Tiger Sniper," it announced, and a bolt of golden energy smashed into the tip of the younger mage's polearm, sending the attempted capture spell wildly off course.

"Hmm?" The auburn haired girl mumbled, as she turned towards the origin point of the attack that had disrupted her capture attempt, and the power fluctuations that were agitating the Jewel Seed abruptly stopped. Seeing Ranma standing on the ground, smirking at her, made her frown in irritation. "You aren't going to stop us from gathering the Jewel Seeds," she said, flatly.

The pigtailed martial artist shrugged. "Gunna try. Why do you want 'em, anyways? These things aren't gunna cure a curse, or make your beloved love you back, or help ya beat a rival or something, they're gunna drive you nuts and make you try and destroy Tokyo." He looked around for a second, and amended, "Erm, I mean Uminari, or wherever the heck we are."

"Our goal is much more important than that!" The girl said, offended. "I know what the Jewel Seeds are capable of, now stand down and allow me to capture this one or I'll force you."

"Nah," Ranma said, taking up a defensive stance and pasting the most infuriating smirk he could manage on his face. "Don't feel like it." This got the expected response, as his opponent lunged towards him, her intelligent device switching to combat mode. Ranma responded in kind, deciding that if Marle could survive a laser to the face in their previous engagement, he'd have to assume his enemy could do likewise, and just try to avoid outright killing blows.

The next few minutes were rather educational. Though it turned out that Ranma's opponent wasn't nearly as good in melee combat as he was, she was a good deal better than anyone her age and size had a right to be. Also, it turned out that energy augmented attacks, like his staff's scythe form, did a lot more damage to barriers than brute force, though the mage's shield was very hard to break either way. He'd managed to come close with an Amaguriken assisted combination strike, though she'd parried the last blow, and then immediately rocketed backwards and upwards, floating several dozen feet in the air.

The pigtailed martial artist stopped, looking for a moment between her and the Jewel Seed, before deciding to go for it and switching his device to capture mode, charging at his goal. He was stopped short by several bolts of lightning, which nearly hit him, and tore up the pavement all around him. Rolling sideways, he returned his attention to the hovering mage, regaining his feet and then leaping into the air to engage her in close combat once again.

Anything Goes, at least his father's style, was made for mid-air combat, and the martial artist's blows became harder to predict and much more forceful when he got within range of the girl. Unfortunately, the momentum transferring and chi manipulation tricks he knew only made it seem like he could fly, while she could. She also apparently had fought someone who used the style before, countering several of his attacks in ways he hadn't expected before they broke apart and he fell to the ground.

Shaking off a rather hard hit to the side of his head, he looked back up, planning to attack again when he realized that his opponent had disappeared. He looked around rapidly, but all he could see was the smashed up street, the Jewel Seed still sitting in the middle. He thought about rushing to grab it, but doubted that his opponent had left him alone without taking it herself. Closing his eyes, he focused on his device, while keeping his ears open for movement. 'Darkfire, can you track her?'

There were several soft clicks, and a pulse of Chi, before the device returned a simple 'negative.' Ranma frowned. If there was some magical way to obscure yourself, then... His eyes widened. 'Do that Chi pulse thing again!' he ordered, and watched in his own mind's eye, as the golden ring of energy expanded out, reacting violently when it hit the energy of the Jewel Seed. However, there was a very small, slightly fuzzy spot where the ring seemed to fade out.

Turning quickly, Ranma leapt backwards, firing a Tiger Sniper at nothing. This revealed his enemy, though what she was doing made him gulp, as he saw that her Device's blade had split in half and it was charging for the attack that had floored Marle. Realizing that he couldn't twist away in time, the martial artist brought both arms forward, hardened his body as much as he could and hoped that his shield would mitigate the impact as the Plasma Lance fired.

It hit him with the strength of a pissed off tomboy from hell, though most of the power went into propelling him backwards, first into, and then through, some sort of department store. When he finally ran out of kinetic energy, he slammed to a stop against the back wall of some form of store room, and heard the sound of bending metal, quickly followed by the sensation of cold water running down her back.

"Oh, so ya can shield me from the Macross Cannon out there, but not a little water?" She grumbled, casting a baleful glance at the small blue jewel that now sat in her hand. Apparently, it'd changed back from its staff form somewhere in their flight, and she'd reverted to the pair of boxers and tank top she'd been wearing before she'd been woken up to fight invisible magical girls. "Can I transform again, or is it straight up martial arts from now on?"

"Template mismatch. Alternate forms require alternate template." The device reported, not seeming at all apologetic.

"And that means..." Ranma asked, tilting her head somewhat, confused.

"Template found, activate?" The device continued, seeming to ignore her. Still, she took this as a good sign that it still worked, hauling herself to her feet and moving her limbs to get some kinks out of them.

"Sure," she said, before gripping the device in her right hand and calling "Darkfire, set up!"

The transformation felt the same as it always had, a rush of power followed by the weight of the slightly armor plated clothes settling on her body, and the staff falling into her hand, though this time something seemed off. For starters, the weapon that fell into her hand had a hilt, the jewel that was the device's brain on its end, and the clothing felt a bit heavier.

Worried, and hoping she wouldn't find herself dressed in anything too horrible, the martial artist surveyed herself, noting that she seemed to have gotten off reasonably well, in a black bodysuit, plates of what looked like grey steel armor protecting her joints and shoulders. The only thing that irritated her was her weapon, which was a long, black Katana with a very thin steel grey edge.

Deciding that she would ask questions later, the redhead charged out of the store room, through the hole in the shop's back wall, just as she saw the younger mage preparing to capture the Jewel Seed.

"Hey, did I say this fight was over?" She yelled, deciding that she'd better not chance her new device, and letting a small chi bolt loose from her free hand.

The mage turned, a mixture of confusion and annoyance present on her features, until Ranma came into her line of sight, and she locked up. The Chi blast plowed straight into her chest, forcing her back about a meter, but she didn't seem to even notice, staring at the pigtailed martial artist in shocked surprise.

"Is there somethin' wrong?" the redhead asked, wondering what had gotten into the younger girl.

"N...no," the girl said, her voice hitching before she brought it forcibly under control. "I was just finishing up this retrieval, you didn't need to..." She abruptly cut off, and backed away a little further.

"Like I said before, you're not gettin' this Jewel Seed," Ranma replied. "But I'm not gunna fight you when you're lookin' at me like I'm going to eat you or somethin'."

The auburn haired girl blinked, before studying Ranma for several moments, and bringing her device up. "Who are you?" She hissed, her expression going from fear to anger in half a second.

"Um, Ranma Saotome?" Said person replied, now looking even more confused.

Her confusion melted away when her opponent's anger boiled over, and she charged forward with a shout of "Liar!" Homicidally angry people she could deal with. At least better than scared little kids.

Leaping over the first strike of the electrified polearm, Ranma tried bringing a foot down on her opponent's back, but the barrier jacket blocked it, as it had most of the other attacks she'd made without her device or a very large investment of Chi. She considered the latter, but doubted she'd be able to inflict enough damage before she drained her reserves. Lifting the device, she decided to try the tiger sniper, despite not really having anywhere for the bolt to emerge from. Instead of said bolt, a crescent shaped burst of energy flew from the blade, in the completely wrong direction, and bisected a lamp post.

"Well, that didn't work," she muttered. "How do I use this thing?" Abruptly, she was deluged with several images, all coming in at once, and just barely managed to land from her leap. All of the pictures were similar, the sort of Patterns Marle had described when she told him how spells usually worked, but most were hard to understand, and she abruptly had to stop thinking about them as she heard the crackling of the mage's blade again, diving to the side just in time to lose the end of her pigtail.

"Hey!" She yelped, not sure if she was talking to the deadly hair dresser or Darkfire. Deciding on one, she began an evasive run, before demanding 'what the heck was that?'

"Authorization for full use of this device is confirmed. Spell data stores unlocked,' the device responded, as though it were obvious.

"So, wait, you knew all this stuff before but just didn't wanna tell me?" Ranma translated, irritably. When the device had the gall to say 'Affirmative,' she considered pitching it into the nearest lake, but quickly got herself under control, bringing up one of the patterns and hoping she was right about what it did.

"Wind Rider." the blade announced, before the pigtailed martial artist found herself lifting into the air, her trajectory changing as she willed it. Apparently, this surprised her opponent, as she managed to turn and get into range reasonably unimpeded, bringing the Katana in for a slice that would hit her barrier but miss anything vital, and then following it with a hard punch.

This sent the girl flying backwards, or at least, that's what Ranma thought until she easily recovered, continuing away from her and sweeping around in a long arc. Ranma grinned, realizing what she was doing. This had abruptly turned into a dogfight. Following, she began looking through the spell patterns that had been shoved into her mind for a way to fire at her opponent that wouldn't drain her power or cut the other girl in half, eventually realizing that attacks like the Tiger Sniper were still possible, but not in quite as straight forward a fashion. Testing this theory, she stretched the blade out in front of her face, letting fly with a golden bolt which her opponent dodged easily before tossing lightning back in return.

This continued for several minutes, the two dancing across the sky over Uminari city, until Ranma seemed almost to stumble, nearly falling out of the air as a wave of dizziness washed over her. She wondered, for a moment, what was happening before remembering that she'd been using a lot of power, and apparently flying took a pretty large amount by itself. She had to win soon, or she was going to pass out from Chi exhaustion.

Seeing that her opponent was about to turn, she decided that she was probably about to make the exhaustion even worse, willing as much chi as she could spare into Darkfire and sending a rapid-fire flurry of attacks across the other's path.

The younger girl immediately came to a stop, turning around to see that Ranma was charging at her, a billowing aura of golden light surrounding her as she brought her sword up for what looked like a crushing blow. She only smirked, waiting for the last second and easily dodging the heavily telegraphed blow... just as the older girl abruptly stopped glowing, seeming to fall out of the sky.

She blinked, noting that she'd won and could finally collect the jewel seed, before she was abruptly hit in the back by several energy bolts, the first few ripping apart her un-concentrated barrier before the rest pummeled her into unconsciousness.

HR.

Marle scowled. She'd been hoping to take her foe out quickly, assist Ranma with the enemy combat mage, and recover the Jewel Seed. As it was, she was hunting through alleys, vaguely on edge, and waiting for a giant cat to leap out of the darkness and try to bite her head off. Apparently, Ranma had gotten lucky in their last combat, and the feline man hadn't decided to take on his original, rather powerful and very fast form during their fight.

Granted, she was a lot more mobile than Ranma and could use search spells, but the cat also had many more places to hide in the several city blocks that had been sealed off by her shield. She was just thankful that he hadn't decided to go outside of it, as she was having enough trouble not causing collateral damage without civilians in the way.

She knew he was stalling her, which probably meant even he thought she could win in a straight up fight, but that didn't really matter, as he was doing so effectively. if she turned away to go and find Ranma, her opponent would get a free shot at her back, which meant that her rather inexperienced partner was on his own against a mage that had taken her out.

She was just about to cast another search spell in an attempt to find the giant tiger, when she was surprised by a booming yell of "Fate!" coming from the top floor of a nearby apartment complex. Quickly following it to its source, she found the tiger staring across the rooftop, where a red haired woman in a ninja-ish outfit was standing, holding the mage who'd attacked her a week ago in her arms. "What're you going to do with her?" the cat growled, sitting in an obviously aggressive stance.

"Gunna give her back," the woman said. "We've got the Jewel Seed, so why don't you two get lost?" Saying this, she gently laid the smaller girl on the roof top, and slowly walked across to the edge where Marle hovered.

"Ranma?" She asked, vaguely recalling the pigtailed martial artist mentioning a curse that turned him into a girl, but wondering why his clothes were so much different. When the redhead nodded, she continued, "We can't let them go. They stole several Lost Logia!"

"That'd be a good point," Ranma responded, "If they weren't already takin' off."

"Huh?" Marle asked, looking away from her partner to notice that the Tiger had vanished, along with the girl.

"Oh, was that a giant tiger?" The pigtailed martial artist continued, as the STAB mage gaped at the empty cement. She was about to answer when Ranma signified that she didn't need one by face planting into the ground, unconscious.

END.

Spoiler note - Ranma will have access to the newly unlocked abilities in male form, and why they suddenly unlocked will be explained, at least a bit, next chapter.


	6. Chapter 5: Path's Intersection

Hi again, folks! I've finally managed to get another update out, and those of you who've seen Nanoha might notice that we're getting closer to the endgame of the first season! Yay!

I know this fic isn't exactly what those who are still following my stories are waiting for, but you write what you can, and I'm personally really enjoying this thing, even if, for the first half of writing it, I didn't know what, exactly, I was doing.

Special thanks to JSB and my stalwart Beta James Axelrad for keeping me honest, though I wanna point out that there was some confusion over beta versions here. I THINK this is the finalized one, but I've checked over the fic so many times by now, I might not have noticed swapping a couple files with very similar names... again.

Anyhow, I'll shut up now and let you guys get on with the show. Please, tell me what you think!

Chapter 5: Path's Intersection.

Ranma groaned to himself, trying to figure out exactly what hurt. It was like there was an ache coming from every part of his body, and none of it at the same time. Correction, she noted, continuing to analyze the sensations. It was her body. After a few more seconds, she attempted to open her eyes, her rather blurred vision managing to make out the shape of a face looking down at her. "Why is it whenever I do something really cool, I end up unconscious?" she muttered, tiredly.

"Because you're slacking off on your training, boy!" the face above her spoke, identifying its owner immediately.

"Gee, thanks ol' man," she muttered, leaning back against the comfortable pillows, "But what happened?"

Her vision was clearing, so she managed to see her parent cross his arms over his chest as he leaned back. "You somehow managed to exhaust your life energy to the point you almost died, that's what happened," he growled. "I trained you better than that!"

"The ol' ghoul taught me better 'n that, you mean," the pigtailed martial artist replied, a pale imitation of her normal smirk coming to her lips.

"Disrespectful little..." her father grumbled, before turning away. "I want to talk to you when you get out of here. Make it quick too, you've been sleeping for three days straight."

"Three days?!" Ranma yelped, immediately shooting up in bed, and regretting it as the world spun crazily around her, causing her to move one hand down to the bed to steady herself.

Genma turned back. "I didn't mean that quick," he grunted. "Settle down."

"But the Jewel seeds..." Ranma objected, but was quieted with an upraised hand.

"That girl's already gotten one without you, they can wait."

Ranma nodded, letting herself slump back down. "Thanks, ol' man." She said, quietly.

Genma only snorted and walked out.

HR.

"I can go in with you." Fate looked away from the steel doors in front of her to see that the larger man next to her was giving her a very worried look, trying to conceal it, and doing so poorly.

"Don't worry about it, Mow," she said, shaking her head. "I'll be all right."

"I understand, but..." Mow continued, and the smaller girl raised a hand to quiet him.

"I said it was all right. Mother isn't a threat that you've got to protect me from, you know." the tiger man was about to respond to that, but snapped his mouth shut as his mistress stepped forward, pushing the doors open and walking through them. When she let them fall closed behind her with a bang, the figure in the large room beyond looked up from where she sat in the middle of the floor, surrounded by an extremely complex set of etched runes.

"Fate, you're back!" The woman's face split into a welcoming smile, and she carefully made her way across the etchings, eventually resorting to a miner flight spell when she realized that she wasn't going to manage walking without stepping on something.

"Yes, mother." the auburn haired girl said, opening her hand to reveal her intelligent device's triangular storage form before willing the jewel seeds she'd captured into visibility. The woman's smile widened for a moment as she gazed at the floating blue artifacts, before she looked back at the girl, a little irritable.

"You've been searching for quite a while. I assumed that you'd have found more than this by now." She said, her voice sounding disappointed.

"There were several leads that ended up being false alarms, or disappearing before I could track them down," the young girl said, and then continued hesitantly, "the Space-Time Administration bureau's here, as well."

"Have you been avoiding contact with them?" The woman said, her eyes narrowing, and her hand reaching down to stroke the small cylinder that was her intelligent device's storage form nestled near the obi of the Kimono she frequently wore. "That isn't a very… courageous thing to do."

The girl flinched. She almost wished that the older woman had said the 'M' word. Granted, it bothered her, a lot, but at least when she'd gone on about that, before it started to become visually obvious that she was a girl, her mother had suffered from that nervous twitch less often. "No," she explained. "I fought them, and beat them once, but they came back. I think they might know something about us."

The older woman's eyebrow rose. "Why do you believe that?"

Fate gulped, but continued her report regardless. "In the second fight, one of them... used psychological tactics. She began by using a barrier jacket a lot like yours. She then... claimed to be Ranma Saotome. I... lost my self control, and she was able to defeat me."

"I see." The older woman said, her voice having lost any trace of the friendliness it had contained when Fate entered the room. She began slowly walking around the circle of runes, and the younger girl's eyes followed her, apprehensive.

Outside of the room, Mow flinched as he heard a loud cracking sound, followed by the sound of a human body falling to the floor. At his side, his right fist was clenched tightly enough that the knuckles were turning white, as he heard a cry. It was soft, muffled and almost suppressed, but his hearing was extremely good. He desperately wanted to rip open the doors he was glaring holes into, to help his mistress, but he knew that this was the one thing that she wouldn't let her familiar defend her from. Releasing the grip before his fingernails could cut his palm open, he continued to stand, as she cried out again.

HR.

"I thought I told you I wanted to talk to you after they let you go?" Ranma looked up from where he'd been flicking the little blue orb that was Darkfire from finger to finger, seeing his father standing in the doorway to the training room with his arms crossed over his chest.

"Yeah, well, it was only a couple'a hours ago," he responded. "Kept telling me they didn't know what happened to me, and wanted me to stay for observation."

The older man grunted. "They were so unsure, they called me and Soun in to see if we knew what was wrong," he responded. "Still doesn't change the fact that I wanted to talk to you."

"Yeah, well..." the pigtailed martial artist flicked his wrist, sending the bobble into the air and catching it. "I was just trying ta figure out what happened, myself. I mean, I know ya said Chi exhaustion, but it doesn't make sense. Darkfire can't even figure out why the spells I cast took so much power."

His father nodded, looking at the device speculatively. "That's actually what I came here to talk to you about," he began, "But first, I wanted to ask you something. When you were first brought in, you were a girl... where did you get the idea for that other barrier jacket?"

Ranma blinked. "Ya mean the Ninja outfit?" He asked, receiving a nod. "I didn't come up with it. Darkfire just told me that I needed a new template or somethin' as a girl, and said it had one."

"And I'm assuming you suddenly learned all of those spells you were using at the end of the fight at the same time?"

"Well, yeah. It said that I'd unlocked a data store, or something." Ranma contributed.

Genma nodded again, raising a hand to his chin. He was, almost unconsciously, striking his 'wise, all knowing sensei' pose and Ranma sort of wanted to punch him in the face just to get him out of it, but he held back.

"Why did you want to know?" He finally asked, after Genma remained silent for a few moments.

The older man dropped his hand from his chin. "Boy, the outfit you were wearing when you were brought in was a nearly exact copy of your mother's barrier jacket. If I were to guess, those were her spell patterns you gained access to as well."

Ranma blinked, his mind temporarily locking up. His mother. He knew he had one, either that or his dad had some serious explaining to do, but he'd rarely ever thought about her. The last time he even remembered thinking of the concept was when he had accompanied the Tendo sisters to their mother's gravesite in a Tokyo cemetery, and Akane had asked him about it.

"But... I thought Darkfire was supposed to be your old device." He said, as his mind had finally come upon something he could wrap his thoughts around.

"It was... mostly," Genma responded. Seeing his son's uncomprehending look, he explained, "The master... Happosai," he spat the name out with venom, "Did a very good job of destroying most of our Bureau gear when we fought him. Both My device and Nodoka's were badly damaged, and Soun and Kimiko's were destroyed. Kimiko managed to repair Darkfire, somehow, by cannibalizing bits of Nodoka's device and incorporating them into it. Unfortunately, doing that screwed up the user recognition code so badly that neither she nor I could activate it."

"But I could because I'm your kid, is that it?" Ranma asked, nodding.

"Well, I honestly didn't think you could," Genma said, looking a little sheepish. "Ranma, to be honest, your magical abilities... pretty much didn't exist. Soun said your linker core was so underdeveloped that it was likely you would never be able to activate a device, but when Happosai got a hold of the Jewel Seed, I got sort of desperate, and you apparently figured out a way to do it anyway." For a moment, a proud smirk crossed his face, before he quickly hid it under his usual expression.

Ranma wondered if he should feel insulted that he apparently was supposed to suck that bad at magic, or proud that he was so good at martial arts that it didn't matter, before another question intruded on his awareness. "So... what happened to Mom?"

"That's a long story," Genma responded, his expression darkening.

"She's dead?" Ranma was surprised when his father shook his head.

"No, according to some people I've contacted since we came aboard, she made it back to Mid-Childa," Genma replied, causing his son's eyebrows to raise. Clearing his throat, he continued, "But I'm not here to answer all of your questions today, I'm here to make sure you don't get yourself killed next time you fight someone with that device of yours."

Ranma nodded. He could recognize the incredibly obvious subject change when he heard it, but decided that, for now at least, the old man could get away with it. "So, what're we doing?"

"Well, that's obvious, isn't it?" Genma responded, leaping at his son and causing the boy to abandon his crossed-legged, seated position to avoid getting his head kicked in.

HR.

"Would you stop looking at me like that?" Ranma grumbled, as he and Marle headed down the hallway that lead to the transport room.

"I can't believe you said that," She replied. "She was trying to be nice."

"Oh, so you tried it?" He asked, as he withdrew his device from his pocket. "If it ain't curry I ain't eating it."

"She's right, you know," the younger girl said, as the two stepped onto the transport platform. "You really are a jerk."

"Yeah, but I'm an un-poisoned jerk," he responded, the two disappearing in a beam of light.

"Well, at least I know you're feeling better," the combat mage responded as she surveyed the landscape they had appeared on, not seeming to have let the teleportation disturb her train of thought. She supposed he'd proven that when he'd helped capture the last Jewel Seed by jumping on, and riding, a bird made of fire, but it was still reassuring.

"So where's the seed this time?" He asked, looking around the wide, grassy field they'd been deposited in the middle of. Marle didn't respond, instead raising her device and activating a search spell, which zipped off into the distance. A few moments later, she cursed, and started flying off in the same direction, rapidly.

Ranma charged after her, wondering exactly what was going on before he finally noticed a small, dark figure hovering in mid-air, light emitting from something nearby. When several bolts of energy flew past the figure, causing it to rapidly dive, his suspicions were confirmed. "All right, let's try out that new spell we've been working on," he muttered, receiving an acknowledgement from his device.

"Fast Break," Darkfire announced, and Ranma was suddenly thrust forward, his feet barely touching the ground as a tremendous force propelled him. True, flying tended to be a lot more fun, but it also wasted too much energy and he'd found simpler, more brute force oriented spells a lot easier to deal with.

"This area doesn't have much cover," Marle's voice entered his head, somewhat distorted as it was being filtered through his device. "I think I can draw off her familiar and put him down before he can get into cover if you can distract her when you get here."

"I'll do more than distract her," Ranma responded, leaping upwards as he got close and disabled his propulsion spell. The enemy mage caught a glimpse of him out of the corner of her eye and was able to throw herself out of the way, though he did strike a hard blow across her shield with his staff, bleeding off a great deal of momentum in the process.

"You again," the girl growled, her eyes narrowing in anger.

"Ain't I a pain in the ass?" He smirked back, landing and skidding to a stop under her. The only response he got was a bolt of lightning, but it answered the question quite nicely.

HR.

"It's just up ahead." Ryoga nodded, as his traveling companion moved ahead of him, the boy's expression somewhat distant. He was pretty sure that Yuuno was somehow receiving data from his search spell, so he didn't mind as he brushed the occasional branch, or in one case, small tree, out of the way.

That was the one problem he'd found with magic, so far. He'd learned how to perform several small spells, proving that he had at least some gift for it, but it took enough concentration that he had no way of using them in combat. Worse still, apparently the ability to shapeshift was a pretty high level spell, and he probably wouldn't be able to pull it off for years, yet. Even so, he thought, when he did he'd definitely have something to hold over Ranma's head for once... even if he would probably eventually teach him.

"So, how far away is this one?" He asked, after a few minutes of silence.

"Only about three hundred meters," Yuuno replied, pointing up a somewhat steep slope nearby. The lost boy nodded, and was in the middle of hoping they weren't going to have to deal with anymore giant monsters, when a tiger bounded over the slope's edge and towards them. He immediately moved in front of his companion, and Yuuno slammed into his back, as a girl flew over the same rise, shooting arrows of light at the animal.

The martial artist stayed in place, observing and trying to figure out what was going on as the tiger charged down the hill, the girl in hot pursuit. When it reached the bottom, it immediately turned around, shimmering and shifting as it straightened up into a humanoid shape, getting just enough height out of the slope to leap up and close the distance with its opponent without leaving itself open to an arrow to the chest.

"What, can everyone do that but me and I missed a memo?" The pig cursed boy grumbled, before some of the tiger-man's features registered, and he grit his teeth. "Lime?!" He bellowed, as the girl attempted to backpedal, but was hit in the stomach and thrown back several meters in spite of her efforts.

The tiger-man ignored the lost boy's enraged shout right up until three razor sharp bandanas flew between him and his target, one of them hitting his barrier. Looking down, he saw two humans standing on the ground below him, one glaring at him, while the other looked confused. "Why are the Musk back in Japan?" The angry man growled, reaching behind his shoulder and unslinging a bamboo umbrella before pointing it at him menacingly.

Deciding that it wasn't much of a threat, he raised one arm before sniffing tentatively under it. "What do you mean Musk?" he asked, wondering why people kept commenting on his scent.

"Don't play dumb, I bet that's why that magical girl was shooting at you!" The umbrella wielding man yelled. "You're kidnapping girls again, aren't you?"

"Kidnapping... what?" the answer he got to that inquiry was an opponent leaping up into the air towards him, yelling a battle cry. He was surprised at how much weight crashed into him, but still took little damage, letting himself fall back to the ground to bleed off some of the force.

'Great, more STAB goons,' he thought, debating the advisability of returning to his mistress and getting out of here. Unfortunately, he was pretty sure that if he turned his back, the mage he'd first been fighting would resume shooting at him, and the newcomer would add his own fire. Of course, given the female mage's only real offensive abilities seemed ranged, there was one other way to do things. Roaring angrily, the familiar hurled himself at the bandanna clad man, getting into close combat range as quickly as possible.

When his first attack landed with almost no attempt to get out of the way, he smirked, thankful that this opponent wasn't nearly as irritating or prone to dodging as the others he'd fought recently. The smirk quickly disappeared, when the blow barely seemed to stagger the other, despite the lack of a visible shield, and he came back with a punch of his own that caused a bright flare as it was deflected.

Nearby, Marle hovered, frowning. She had to admit that the tiger man had chosen a good tactic, getting close enough to his new opponent that she couldn't assist without risking hitting the other, though as she studied the conflict she noted that the newcomer was holding his own. Turning to observe her surroundings, she caught sight of another new person at the bottom of the hill she'd so recently flown down, though he was clambering up as quickly as he could manage. Deciding on a course of action, she turned away from her current conflict, noting that a few hundred meters away, Ranma was busily engaging the auburn haired mage, dancing out of the way of her attacks before retaliating with a leaping series of strikes, or several short blasts of golden energy.

Raising her hands into position and sending a command to her device, the STAB agent concentrated as a circle of runes formed several inches in front of her, growing slowly. She briefly let herself get a little distracted as she saw a flash of golden light out of the corner of her eye, but quickly refocused before her spell could lose any momentum. 'Ranma, clear!' she projected, as the spell reached full charge and her device announced "Archer Raid."

Abruptly, her rune circle exploded in a flurry of magical arrows, all flying towards her target. Ranma had apparently received the warning, as he leapt away, and his opponent looked around in confusion for a moment before her eyes widened. She'd noticed the incoming attack far too late to get out of the way, but her shield spell sprang into place just before the first wave of arrows struck. The barrage lasted for about three seconds, before Marle let her hands fall, and slumped forward slightly, panting.

When the smoke finally cleared, the girl seemed almost to be leaning heavily on her polearm, despite the fact that she was still floating in mid-air. The hand that held the device was shaking noticeably, and she was panting much harder than Marle had been. Nearby, Ranma watched warily, before walking towards the floating girl. "Look, just give it up, all right?" He asked, as his partner began preparing her spell again.

The younger mage just turned towards him, giving him a look that caused him to stagger back a short distance in surprise. It wasn't the usual anger or frustration he'd seen on the faces of foes before, but a strange combination of weariness and determination. Understanding what it meant, he reluctantly raised his staff into both hands, and charged forward just as the girl disappeared into thin air. He immediately closed his eyes, sending out a pulse of Chi similar to the one that had managed to detect her in their last fight, but it came back with no results, and continued to do so on the second and third attempts.

Reluctantly, he opened his eyes and ran for the Jewel Seed, hoping that doing so would draw the girl out, but was surprised when he switched his device to capture mode and retrieved the artifact with little effort, and no opposition. Lowering the device, he turned back to Marle's previous location, where he saw four people standing around, one of them holding what looked like several glowing chains that bound another tightly. As he approached, the figures resolved themselves into Marle, the guy she'd been fighting, who was being magically chained up, a short blond kid who was holding the end of the chains, and... "Ryoga!"

The lost boy looked around, surprised to hear the familiar, yet ever annoying voice and letting it distract him from the second flying child he'd met on his current, rather strange journey. He wasn't really surprised to see Ranma Saotome loping towards him with a big, stupid grin on his face, though he was rather curious about the staff he held in his right hand, and the strange, armored additions to his usual Chinese outfit.

"You know this man Ranma?" The magical girl asked, looking between the two martial artists in confusion.

The pigtailed martial artist nodded. "Yeah, P-chan and me beat the crap outta each other every once in a while." He smirked. "Well, I beat him more than he beats me, but still."

Ryoga growled at this but was interrupted before he could dispute the claim by the girl. "Did you secure the Jewel Seed?"

"Yeah," Ranma said, holding up the staff. "I got it, but that Fate girl got away." He looked disturbed for a second. "Didn't look like a teleport, but I couldn't find her like last time she went invisible."

"So... you're looking for the Jewel Seeds, too?" This comment came from the short, blond boy, who was still holding onto his chains.

The female mage nodded, and then blinked as she noticed what the boy was doing. "Yes," she said, and then raised her device. "STU, capture restraint." Her device acknowledged, and the boy's golden chains were joined by white cords of magic, causing the tiger man to grunt in irritation, but otherwise remain silent. "My name is Marle Hewlett, STAB Combat Mage."

The boy nodded, sighing in relief as he released his own restraining spell. "Yuuno Scrya. Are you the ones who were sent to help me recover the Jewel Seeds?"

"Wait, that's the archeologist?" Ranma spoke up, before getting a warning look from his partner, and restraining the impulse to rant about kids and dangerous situations.

Marle continued as though the older boy hadn't spoken. "Yes. We've secured five of them so far, but unfortunately there's been some opposition," she gave a pointed look at the restrained tiger man with this statement, "And we've failed to capture at least nine others."

"Well, um," Yuuno said, producing something from a small bag that he'd slung over his shoulder, "We've retrieved four so far."

"And you keep them in a rice box?" Marle asked, her eyebrow raised dubiously.

"Well, I had a Bureau provided device, but it was lost shortly after I arrived," the boy admitted, sheepishly. "I've used compact containment spells to keep them safe, though."

Marle nodded, somewhat admiring. That was quite a complex bit of magic, and she would have to take a look at it when they returned to the Typhon, but in the meantime, she looked over to their prisoner, and Raised her device. "Are you two willing to return to our ship with us so we can secure this prisoner and your Jewel Seeds?"

Yuuno looked at Ryoga, who looked back, obviously more confused than he was and throwing uncertain glances at the pigtailed martial artist who stood next to the STAB mage. Eventually, he noticed the younger boy's look, and shrugged. "That should be fine," Yuuno responded, and Marle was just about to speak, when there was a blur of motion, and several things seemed to happen at once.

For one, the restrained Tiger man seemed to leap forward, the white energy bonds sloughing off as though he wasn't impeded by them in the least. Second, Ranma flew through the space he had occupied, and there was a flurry of blows before the auburn haired enemy mage flickered into position, holding her sparking polearm in such away that it blocked a close-combat mode Darkfire. The Tiger man, for his part, wasn't idle, as he charged forward, rearing back with one fist and hitting the young archeologist in the face, sending him flying one way and his Jewel Seed filled box the other. Ryoga leapt to attack, but his target quickly ducked, sparing just enough time to snatch the Jewel Seeds on his way past.

"I've got them!" the familiar bellowed, and Ranma's opponent nodded, falling back quickly enough to cause the pigtailed martial artist to have to rebalance before he could turn to pursue. Unfortunately, by the time he was capable of doing so, the younger girl was already in the air, flying towards a running tiger with a rice box in its mouth, before the two of them disappeared in a bright flash of light.

HR.

That debriefing had not been fun, Ranma decided as he walked through the corridors of the Typhon, his mind lost in recalling the last moments of his most recent mission. Granted, the dressing down he'd gotten, along with Marle, had been pretty much deserved, but damn, it hurt to have to admit it, especially since Captain Hewlett didn't couch it in insults and bombastic yelling like his old man usually did. They'd been stupid, especially since he should have realized that the girl would never leave an ally behind, just as he wouldn't. ...well, unless it was Kuno, maybe.

Fortunately, Ryoga and Yuuno had gotten off pretty light, as the kid was a non-combatant even by these insane weirdoes' standards, and no one really knew what to make of the lost boy, but Ranma got the feeling his old man would be showing up soon, going on about how weak and dishonorable a son he had. "Damn..." he muttered, looking out of a window, and watching the ever-distorting patterns of inter-dimensional space. He was about to continue on, perhaps to go to the cafeteria before heading to the training room to try and figure out why he hadn't been able to detect that invisibility spell this time, when a voice came from behind him, and he jumped.

"Ranma?" Turning quickly, he saw Akane, standing and fiddling with her fingers nervously.

"Oh, uh, Hi Akane," he replied, reaching up to tug at his pigtail. "Somethin' up?"

She seemed to twitch for a moment, before responding, "Can we talk?"

"I'm a little busy," he said, feeling a slight sense of unease, but not sure why. His question was answered a moment later when her nervous look melted away to be replaced with a hurt, angry one and she grabbed him by the arm.

"We really need to talk," she said, and he finally noticed the quaver in her voice that had been there, at a lower level, the whole time.

Frantically, he dug through his memory, trying to figure out what he'd done to get her mad this time. "Um, if this is about the food at lunch, I..." he started, but was surprised when she turned away from him in order to stare out the same window he had before.

"It's not about that," she mumbled, quietly enough that he had to lean towards her slightly to hear her. "Well, it's sort of about that. I mean, when I gave it to you, all you did was say 'I'm not eating this,' and walk out. You didn't even call me a tomboy, or mention how horrible my cooking was."

"Wait," he said, tilting his head. "You wanted me to insult you?"

"Yes!" She burst out, and then shook her head. "I mean... I WANTED you to eat it and enjoy it, which you probably would have, since Kasumi helped me cook it, but at least insulting me about it would have been something!"

"Huh?" She didn't even have to face him to see the perplexed look on his face.

"Ranma, when was the last time we had a conversation about anything?" She asked, her anger temporarily reigned in.

He thought for a moment, realizing that they hadn't really talked much lately. "Right after I fought that Fate kid for the first time, right?"

She shrugged, having never heard the name, but knowing it had been after a fight he'd lost. "And before that, we didn't exchange more than three sentences since we got here."

"Well, if ya wanted to talk, you could have just come and got me," he offered, obviously still confused.

She snorted. "No, I couldn't." she said, bitterly. "Every minute of every day since we got here, you were either sleeping, in the middle of training, eating or down looking for those damned Jewel Seeds! The only reason I found out you nearly died a week ago was because I heard our parents talking about it while they were drunk, last night!"

"I..." Ranma said, uncertainly. He knew she was crying, even if she still hadn't turned to face him. "I'm sorry..."

"I don't want an apology," she muttered, shaking her head. "I just... I had to leave home, my friends, even P-chan's not here, since we couldn't wait for him to show back up before we left. I thought I'd at least have you to... to be your usual jerkish self. I just want to know why."

Ranma didn't respond for a few moments, knowing again that this was a minefield, and that he'd screwed up the last time he'd been asked a question this important. "When I showed up at your place," he began, slowly, "things started to get kinda complicated." Knowing that this was going to cause an outburst, he held up a hand in a warding motion before continuing. "I was okay with school, and Kuno, and I guess even the engagement, or I kinda got used to 'em, at least."

Akane nodded, showing that she was listening, so he continued. "Then Ryoga showed up, and Kodachi, and Shampoo, and..." He waved his hand, as though to indicate that he could go on all day. "I learned a lot of techniques, don't get me wrong. I loved the fights, but they came with a whole buncha other stuff I didn't know how to deal with. All these people who wanted crap, would be really hurt if I couldn't give it to 'em, and I couldn't figure out a way to settle things so they were all okay."

He looked away from the raven haired girl, staring out the window again himself. "When all this stuff happened, I dunno, I wasn't goin' away forever, I was going to come back, but I'd have time to think, y'know?" He shook his head. "Then I got into the fights, and learning all this stuff about magic, and... I guess I didn't think. Like I said, I'm real sorry, Akane. Guess I kinda screwed up, huh?"

She stayed silent for a long moment, before responding, "No worse than usual, really."

He couldn't help it, he laughed, joined after a second or so by the girl beside him. When he had quieted again, she continued, "Just... from now on, try and remember we exist, all right?" He nodded, and she smiled, before turning and heading towards her room. Before she left sight around a corner, she looked back. "And don't lose!" She called, before walking off.

"What in the world just happened?" He muttered, feeling a profound sense of relief, but not entirely understanding why or how he'd managed to say something right, for once. Deciding not to look a gift horse in the mouth, he headed for the cafeteria.

END.


	7. Chapter 6: Storm

Okay, new chapter. Things to note.

This chapter has only been through one of two Beta cycles. Seems to be a recurring problem with this fic, but in this case it's because I wanted to manage to publish a chapter within a month of the previous one, so couldn't wait for my continuity and tone Beta to show up. Sorry, JSB.

I hope it doesn't have that many mistakes, and that you all enjoy it.

Chapter 6: Storm.

"C'mon, P-chan, that was just kinda pathetic," Ranma said, as he leaned slightly backwards on the balls of his feet, his hands jammed casually in his pockets. Several feet away from him, Ryoga Hibiki was standing in a much more obvious fighting stance, slowly removing several bandanas from his head, and beginning to whirl them around in one hand.

"Sure, keep telling yourself that, Ranma," he growled, before his hand lashed out, sending the suddenly razor sharp black and yellow projectiles at his opponent in a rapidly spreading pattern. Ranma immediately began moving, dancing and dodging out of the way of the projectiles before pushing hard off of the ground with one foot, suppressing a cringe as a wound from one of the lost boy's earlier hits abruptly made itself known. This slowed him down for only a fraction of a second, but it was enough as Ryoga's arm moved up to block a series of quick, chi enhanced blows that were meant for his gut before returning with a powerful blow to Ranma's head which the pigtailed martial artist nimbly dodged to the side of, continuing around and landing a vicious kick to the lost boy's side.

At one side of the large, open room where she and Ranma usually practiced magic, Marle had to admit that she was impressed. In all of the fights she had observed, Ranma had been unleashing his martial skill against mages, their barriers making his usual quick, relatively light strikes rather ineffective, but here she was seeing what he could do against an opponent who fought in his style, without any help from his device. Not that the pigtailed boy's opponent was any less impressive, as he shrugged off attacks without a barrier that would probably break most of the bones in her body, and his own strikes, when they occasionally missed Ranma and struck a floor or wall, caused the heavily re-enforced metal to vibrate alarmingly.

She reflected that the lost boy would probably make a much better mage, as he was already accustomed to the tactic of having to stand and take hits in order to charge up a powerful, barrier breaking attack, something that seemed anathema to Ranma. Her thoughts were interrupted as the larger boy struck the wall once again, Ranma having lead him there while dodging his attacks. While he recovered, the smaller boy rolled forward between his legs, catching himself on his hands behind Ryoga and striking the back of the other's knee several times with precision.

Ryoga grunted, falling forward as his right leg gave out from under him, but managing to stay on one knee. "You give up yet, P-chan?" Ranma asked, after springing to his feet.

"I suppose, since this is a spar, I don't really have to knock you unconscious this time," Ryoga responded, and Ranma grinned, walking up to him and offering a hand. Ryoga promptly grabbed it, pulling himself up and wincing as he tested his tender leg.

"Yeah, sure." Ranma said, patting the lost boy on the shoulder condescendingly and getting his hand swatted away with a growl for his trouble. "So, what'd ya think?"

"That was..." A voice piped up next to Marle, and she looked over to see Yuuno trying to figure out what to say, his expression causing her to grin a little.

"Impressive?" She offered, nodding at the two. Ranma just smirked, as Ryoga reached up to fiddle with his bandanna. "Unfortunately, Mr. Hibiki has some things he has to take care of."

Both Yuuno and Ryoga looked confused. "Weren't we already debriefed?" the blond asked.

"Yes, about the Jewel seeds, however the captain wants to talk to Ryoga about the Bureau's secrecy regulations. Nothing serious, really," The dark haired girl explained.

"Right, about how no one on earth's supposed ta know about magic," Ranma said, obviously skeptical. "I'm pretty sure that's a lost cause."

"Yes, well, that's not really our call to make, remember?" the female mage replied, having apparently had this argument with the older boy a few times before.

"Yeah, yeah," Ranma waved her off. "Good luck, P-chan."

Ryoga took a minute to glare at his rival, before turning and carefully following the combat mage from the room. He almost lost track of her a few seconds later, when she looked back curiously and asked "P-chan?"

His response was lost as a door slid shut behind him, and Ranma shrugged, before heading for the door himself. "Excuse me, Saotome-san?" He was stopped by the rather tentative voice of Yuuno, and saw the younger boy looking at him uncertainly.

"It's Ranma," he replied, "Saotome-san's the ol' Panda, and you need something?"

"I was just wondering where you were going," the archeologist explained, still seeming somewhat nervous. Ranma thought that it was a little odd, as speaking to him previously, he'd seemed quiet, but reasonably confident.

"I'm goin' to meet Akane in the cafeteria for lunch," he replied, "You wanna come, or something?"

The younger boy nodded, so Ranma shrugged, before continuing towards the door. Neither of them talked for a few moments, simply proceeding down the white halls, before Yuuno asked, quickly, "You have a curse, right? Like Ryoga's?"

"P-chan told you about that, huh?" the martial artist replied, wondering where this conversation was going, and thinking that he might not like it, given how nervously unsure the other was being. "I turn into a girl when splashed with cold water, just like he turns into a pig, but, uh, don't mention his to anyone around here, all right?"

"Um... all right," Yuuno responded, clearly confused.

After another moment of silence, Ranma asked, "Is there a reason you wanted ta know, or were you just curious?"

"Well," the mage's footsteps faded, and Ranma turned to see that he was standing still, holding a small thermos. He tensed, wondering if he was going to get a splash to the face, when the younger boy opened it, and then poured some of the water inside onto his hand, passing Ranma the container.

The pigtailed martial artist tilted his head, studying Yuuno carefully for a moment, before dipping a finger into the water, noting that it was cool. "I don't get it," he admitted.

"You... don't get what?" The blond's voice sounded incredulous.

"What were you tryin' to show me?" Ranma responded, evenly.

Yuuno wasn't sure if this should be taken as insulting or not. "You can't tell?"

"Can't tell what?" Ranma now sounded a little annoyed.

"I'm a girl right now!" Yuuno yelled, before realizing that doing so was probably not the smartest idea, and looking around nervously to see if anyone else had been near enough to hear.

"Oh." Ranma squinted a little. "I can sorta see it, I guess, and when you raised your voice it sounded a bit higher."

"It's really that hard to tell?" the blonde asked, looking downcast.

Trying to figure out a way to cheer her up, Ranma dumped the rest of the small thermos over his own hand, feeling the customary shift of his curse taking effect. "Well, I guess I just might not be able to notice since my change is so obvious."

The younger curse victim looked up when she heard Ranma's voice change, and blinked. The older girl now standing in front of her had a point. She was at least a head shorter than Ranma's male form, and she had bright red hair. "Yeah," she mumbled, surprised.

"So how did you end up in Jusenkyo?" Ranma asked, starting to walk again, with Yuuno falling in beside her.

"Ryoga and I were searching for Jewel Seeds in China, and I detected some strange magic..." The blonde blushed a little. "I wasn't really paying attention to where I was walking."

"Huh, wonder where the guide was?" Ranma mumbled, but then shrugged. "Sorry about your luck," she continued. "There are a few ways to cure a curse, spring of drowned man's supposed to do it, but every time I've tried, something's happened that's stopped me from getting my hands on it."

"Yeah, I kinda figured curing it wouldn't be easy," Yuuno replied. "Ryoga seemed to think learning shape changing magic would be easier, even after I explained that it would probably take him years and there was a chance that he couldn't do it at all."

"Wait," Ranma said, stopping dead. "There's shape changing magic you can learn?" Yuuno was about to respond, when the older girl pulled a small blue ball out of her pocket, and glared at it for a few moments. Putting it back, she muttered, "Well ya didn't have to call me an idiot over it."

"Your device... called you an idiot?" Yuuno asked, uncertainly, relatively sure what the blue ball was.

"Well, not directly," Ranma responded. "He's really sarcastic when he wants to be, though. Told me that he doesn't have any spells like that I could use because each mage has to construct their own."

Yuuno nodded. "The spell has to be specially configured for your body," she explained, and then paled, suddenly rather grateful that she hadn't tried to shift into her ferret form while female, as the physiological changes would probably have caused...problems."

"Well, for now, I guess, welcome to the club," Ranma said, cautiously.

"Thanks..." The mage said, actually meaning it. "But I sort of wanted to ask you if you had any advice, since you've got the same curse that I do."

"Huh, someone askin' me for advice," Ranma muttered, shaking her head. "Well, like I said, curse can be sorta a pain in the ass, and the guide told me 'n the old man that we probably shouldn't try and use water from the spring of the drowned man for a month or two, since they tend ta mix if they're not stable, or something."

She stopped in the middle of the hall again, trying to think. "Never assume you can avoid water, if it'll be embarrassing, it'll hit no matter what ya try and do to avoid it, but I guess you're sorta lucky since you're young enough it's hard to notice and your hair color and stuff doesn't change."

The blonde nodded, somehow giving off the impression that she was taking notes without the presence of any paper or pencils. When she saw that Ranma had stopped, and was now fidgeting uncomfortably with her pigtail, she asked, "Is there something else?"

"Erm, well," The redhead looked down. "If ya end up with the curse for a couple years, you might wanna ask an older female member of your family about... girl stuff. Someone you're not gunna have a problem discussing embarrassing stuff with."

"You mean dresses and makeup or something?" Yuuno questioned, looking somewhat queasy.

"No... not that, they'll know what I'm talking about," Ranma replied, uncomfortably, remembering a humiliating talk she'd had with Kasumi during the full body cat's tongue incident. The silence that fell after those words was extremely awkward, though Yuuno was going to try and attempt to break it when an alarm suddenly burst to life, and small red lights set into the ceiling began to flash.

"Oh, thank you," Ranma whispered, too quietly for the other to hear, before continuing, "I've got to get to the bridge. That sounds pretty bad."

"I'll go with you," Yuuno responded, and the two began running. Fortunately, the Typhon's command center was relatively close by, and the two entered as captain Hewlette was sitting down and demanding a status report.

"Sir, we've just detected a large collection of Jewel seeds," One of the crewmembers manning the consoles around the edge of the room reported. "Looks like six of them."

"Six of them?" Hewlette questioned, "And they all activated at once like that?"

"That can't be natural," Marle observed, from where she stood behind her father, Ryoga standing uncertainly next to her.

"It's not," another crewman responded, and one of the screens at the front of the room switched its view from an image of the planet to one of a storm tossed ocean, a small, dark figure in the middle of the image surrounded by six columns of crackling, lightning-like energy.

"That kid who's after the Jewel Seeds," Ranma exclaimed, and the captain took a moment to glance at her before nodding.

"They were probably too far down to retrieve normally, so she hoped that agitating them with magic would bring them up."

"Well, it's worked, but they're resonating with each other," the first officer chipped in. "They're building enough power, I'm not sure..." He was interrupted as the small figure on the screen raised her device into the air, apparently trying to capture one of the Jewel Seeds, before the magical expenditure drew some of the energy towards her, smashing into her quickly raised barrier and pushing her back several feet.

"We gotta go down there," Ranma decided. "We can't let her capture all six of those things, and she doesn't look like she can handle it either way."

"No," the captain responded, and he could almost feel the incredulous look from the martial artists behind him. "That interference is too strong for us to get a teleport spell directly in or out, and the storm is dangerous enough to kill a mage, even without that girl helping."

"So what, we just leave her there?" Ranma asked, as, this time, the girl got further in attempting to seal a seed, her feline familiar shielding her for several seconds before three consecutive energy bolts overwhelmed his barriers and swatted him out of the sky.

"We will hope that she is able to capture some of the Jewel Seeds before she is incapacitated or killed," the older man said, his voice having gone flat.

This even brought a horrified gasp from Marle, though it didn't bring the outburst from Ranma he'd been expecting. Turning, he saw why. If looks could kill, the redhead's glare probably would have vaporized him on the spot, and it was joined by another, equally intense.

The course of action he was ordering was truly the only one he considered viable. He wasn't going to throw his own mages into an extremely deadly situation because his enemy was doing something stupid, but he'd expected resistance. What he didn't expect was Ranma not to say a word, but rather to turn, running from the room, followed by Ryoga and Yuuno.

HR.

"Couldn't we have talked to them about this before running off to do it ourselves?" Ryoga asked, as he caught up to his pigtailed rival, ignoring the people who were calling after them from the room they'd just left.

"Woulda taken too long," Ranma responded, shrugging. "Besides, if you've taught me anything, it's that reasoning never works."

"Gee, thanks," the Hibiki boy muttered, leveling a half-lidded glare at her. "You've at least got a plan, right?"

"Yeah," Ranma nodded. "He said we can't get right in, so I'm gunna fall in from above."

"What's this 'I' stuff?" the pig cursed boy demanded, managing to keep track of Ranma as she veered around a corner through sheer effort... and the help of Yuuno bumping him onto the right path.

"P-chan, it's the middle of the pacific," the currently female martial artist snorted. "Unless you've figured out how to fly, you'd be a pig in seconds, and with the rain, ya probably still would be even if you had figured it out."

Ryoga grunted irritably. "All right, then what am I doing?" He asked, hating it when Ranma was right, especially when it had to do with the curse.

"You'll keep everybody off me while I figure out how to work the teleporter controls," The redhead responded, as if it were obvious, getting a horrified look from her rival.

"You don't know how to work the teleporter?" He asked, almost losing Ranma as she ducked into a large room, a dimly glowing white pad on one end, opposite a large, complex looking console.

"Saw Marle do it a couple times," Ranma responded, shrugging dismissively before heading for the console.

She was stopped as a desperately gasped "wait" caused her to look back towards the lost boy, noticing that Yuuno was standing beside him, trying to catch her breath. "I know how to operate it."

"Um, you sure, kid?" Ranma asked, surprised and rather impressed that the young mage had managed to keep up with them. "We're probably gunna get thrown in prison over this, y'know."

"I'm sure," Yuuno said, having managed to recover somewhat and stepping towards the console. She began tapping at it, and frowned. "They've figured out what we're trying, give me a minute."

"They're trying to stop us? Great." Ryoga grumbled, turning around in the doorway and beginning to watch the halls for whatever security forces the ship used.

Ranma considered joining him, before Yuuno caught her attention and waved at the teleport pad with the one hand that wasn't poking buttons. She nodded, even if the distracted mage couldn't see it, and moved to stand on the pad just as Ryoga charged out of the doorway, yelling like a madman.

There were several loud crashes, before he returned, his umbrella unfolded and sporting one rather large burn hole. "Got it!" Yuuno announced, seconds later, and the pigtailed martial artist found herself falling forward, into the jaws of a vicious wind that blew her pigtail straight back behind her and caused her eyes to instantly tear up.

Withdrawing the little blue ball from her pocket, she yelled "Darkfire, set up!" The words being swept away by the wind, even as her barrier jacket wrapped her body, lessening its force dramatically. "Okay," She projected her thoughts towards the device, "You think we can pull off an alteration of the flight spell in about five seconds?"

"Yes," the device simply replied, as the two of them descended closer and closer to water level, the pigtailed martial artist angling herself into the center of the storm, where she saw the dark form of the other Mage frantically dodging energy bolts.

"Okay," She said, as the form had grown to the point that she could make out her auburn hair. "Do it."

"Wind Rider, Revision, Wave Runner." Darkfire glowed as Ranma slammed into the younger girl's back, the force from an unexpected direction seeming to overwhelm her barrier jacket. The martial artist grabbed her under one arm, hitting the water as though it were a solid surface and charging across it, followed by a line of lightning bolts.

"Wha... what are you doing?" The younger mage demanded, having taken several seconds to regain her senses as Ranma ran around the edge of the storm in a long, wide arc, a combination of a low power flight spell and the technique she used to stand on Kuno's sword or Happosai's pipe keeping her upright.

"Keepin' you from getting yourself killed," Ranma said, shortly.

Fate caught herself wondering exactly why the STAB mage wanted to do that, before deciding that the question was better put off until later. "And how do you expect to do that?" She asked, squirming to try and get loose. "Right now we're in the same position I was in before, only not as high up."

She was abruptly answered as she found herself being lifted, placed on the older redhead's shoulders. "I'm gunna keep us from getting fried, while you seal the Jewel Seeds."

"That won't work, your shield probably isn't strong enough. " Fate responded, recalling what had happened to her familiar when he'd tried it. She hadn't been able to find him since he'd fallen into the ocean.

"Who said anything about shields?" Ranma responded, turning her head slightly to give a smirk to the younger girl. "Just get castin'."

Fate nodded, though she knew the one she was riding on couldn't see it. At this point, she didn't have much to lose. "Sovnya, capture mode." She ordered, raising her device, as the Jewel Seeds once more zeroed in on the evident source of magical energy emitted by a capture spell. The auburn haired girl was about to brace to create her own barrier, when the world lurched, beginning to move crazily. Abruptly, she realized that she was moving extremely quickly, the bolts of energy smashing into the water behind her and tossing out huge gouts of spray. The other mage wasn't trying to shield against the attacks, dodging instead. Since she wasn't the one who had to maintain the flight spell, Fate herself could concentrate enough to finish the capture, and the first of the active seeds flashed into dormancy, flying towards her device as the two ran past.

"That's one," Ranma yelled, a grin starting to form on her face as she just barely got out of the way of attacks that came in from either side. "Keep it up!"

Fate nodded, beginning a second capture, though it seemed that the six seeds had been somehow keeping each other stable as well as increasing their power, as the number of bolts abruptly got larger, Ranma taking a glancing hit across one arm and stumbling to the side. Fate ignored this as best she could, a second seed going dormant and being taken into her device as the two swung past, and then a third.

At this point, the strain of so many capture spells in short order was starting to show, though the auburn haired girl continued, bringing in the fourth. Unfortunately, when she tried to capture the fifth, its power was suppressed for just a few seconds, before bursting free again, knocking the two of them flying. The younger mage managed to recover, though she saw the redhead trying to recover her senses nearby, the Jewel Seeds apparently still focused on her. Unsure of exactly why she did it, she moved quickly, putting herself between the older mage and the attacks, deflecting several of them and rather thankful that there were only two seeds left. Abruptly, that number decreased to one, as a new capture spell came from above them, sealing one of them.

"'Bout time you got here," Ranma called, hauling herself to her feet and rather thankful that her Wave Runner spell hadn't failed yet.

Looking up, Fate recognized the boy who had held the box full of Jewel Seeds in their last encounter, catching the one he'd just captured. "It's pretty hard to catch up to someone who's free-diving towards the ground as quickly as possible when you're flying like a normal person, you know." He said, somewhere between annoyance and worry.

"Yeah, well, it worked." Ranma responded. "Now let's get the last one."

The boy nodded, though Fate immediately switched her device to close combat mode, flying up to get between him and the last seed, which had settled down dramatically without any others to resonate off of. "I can't let you do that."

"Aw, c'mon," Ranma grumbled, clearly exasperated. "We helped you out, here. You owe us something."

"I know." The girl said, quietly. "Unfortunately, it isn't this."

"Fine, then at least give us an explanation," Ranma demanded. "Why do ya want the Jewel Seeds so much that you almost got yourself killed to get them?"

Fate thought about this for a moment, and then responded. "I need to find my family."

"But... how would the Jewel Seeds allow you to do that?" Yuuno asked, obviously confused. "All they do is act as power sources and distort dimensional barriers."

"Mother has a plan," the girl replied, resolutely. "If I get enough of them, we will be able to find them."

"Well, that's nice 'n all, but why didn't she just ask the STAB for help or something?" Ranma questioned. "This ain't exactly the sane way to do things."

"We can't!" Fate responded, "We already tried." As she spoke, she looked around, taking in her surroundings. She wasn't really sure about her current chances. The girl who had helped her was likely nearly as tired out as she was, though she really didn't know how strong the other Jewel Seed hunter had been. Mow had sucker punched him the only time they had fought, and... Her eyes suddenly widened.

"Mow?" She asked, recalling that her familiar had been taken out early in the Jewel Seeds' activation. Now that she wasn't constantly being shot at, she had time to look for him. Ignoring the strange looks from the STAB mages, her eyes ranged around the area, finding the frighteningly still body of a tiger somehow floating on the waves. 'Mow?' she hesitantly mentally projected, fearing that he was dead, despite knowing that she would have felt it if he'd died.

She heard a groan in return, which both reassured her and worried her, as he was alive, but probably couldn't manage a teleport, which meant she was stuck here for at least a little while even if she were inclined to let the STAB have the last Jewel Seed.

"Now that I've answered your questions," She started, trying to think of a way to delay the others long enough to buy time for her familiar to recover, "I want you to tell me something." She then pointed at the redhead who was standing on the water below her. "Why did you call yourself Ranma Saotome when we first met?"

"Um, 'cuz that's my name," Ranma replied, with a shrug. "I notice it pissed ya off a lot, though. Did the ol' man swipe something off of you when he was on Mid-Childa, or something?"

"Ranma Saotome is male," Fate responded, shortly, glaring at the older girl hotly.

"Um, yeah, I am, usually." Ranma said, looking confused. "You triggered my curse first time we fought by kicking me through a storefront, or something, but... how do you know me?"

"Curse?" Fate asked, but was abruptly distracted when she heard a voice projected into her mind.

'What are you doing? Take them down and capture the Jewel Seed.'

'Mother,' she responded, surprised to hear the older woman while not in their dimensionally shifted base of operations. 'I don't have the strength to...'

She was interrupted when the blond mage who was hovering, watching the other two abruptly fell out of the sky, a crackling electrical current running through him, and the Jewel Seed he had been holding falling from his hand and disappearing.

Fate's eyes widened as she recognized the attack, and they continued to grow as Ranma somehow leapt away from her position on the water, sending a crescent shaped blade of energy at the position she'd formerly occupied. Something seemed to be hit, but it wasn't visible, and several seconds later Ranma's arms and device blurred in a quick series of strikes. She hit home enough times for her opponent's invisibility spell to fail, revealing an older woman in a duplicate of her barrier jacket, her grey blade slightly differently adorned. She stepped back, surprised, and the opening was just enough to allow a quick, vicious attack that left a long gash across her side, a pulse of electrical energy entering her body through the strike and causing her to fall unconscious.

"Seal the last Jewel Seed," Nodoka Saotome ordered, flatly, though Fate could see the anger hidden behind her eyes.

"Yes, Mother," she responded, quickly casting the spell to do so, ignoring her body's protests. When the seed had been absorbed by her device, she turned, preparing to retrieve her familiar. She was stopped by her mother's hand wrapping around her arm like a vice, and a teleportation spell drew them away, leaving three unconscious forms floating on the water.

END.

Well, anyone who didn't see that coming, I'm kinda surprised since it was blatantly obvious last chapter. Still, I needed a place to end this, and that seemed to be a good enough spot. Sorry it's so short, but like I said, wanted to get a chapter out within a month. I know that's not a good thing to base chapter lengths on, but I've been dealing with really screwy writer's block for so long that I'm perhaps unreasonably happy about this small victory.

I'd really appreciate any reader feedback. Even if you think this thing should be killed, or if it's yelling about how sub-par the first few chapters are, it'll help. Please R&R!

And now that I'm done shamelessly begging for reviews, um... I've got nothing else to say. So... yeah. Hope you enjoyed.


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